Maggie Sottero Rocks the Red Gowns

Red wedding gowns are cool, right? A lot of us who couldn't actually pull the trigger and walk down the aisle in a full-on red dress really admire them.

There's a drama to a full, elaborate bridal gown in red that no other color can match. It's like the visual equal of "Like Water for Chocolate." Or a Jerry Hall lipstick, capable of moving a face from girlish to womanly in a few strokes. Or a seductive twentysomething Madonna at a dinner club (according to Rupert Everett). Okay, I could go on, but you get the point.

So it was cool to hear from a reader, Shelene (thanks Shelene!), that Maggie Sottero had come out with a lot of red dresses, with some stunners. "A lot" is about the same as "two" for a lot of design houses, but Maggie Sottero had more. Which is nice, because it seemed like colors might be cooling off a bit on the bridal world.

Top to Bottom, L to R: Amara Royale, Fiorenza, Stella. Brittanya, Capri, Amour Brooch. By Maggie Sottero.

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I really like Maggie Sottero. The dresses are mid-priced, so if you really, really want one, you can probably pull it off. And there's a whimsy and a playfulness with them I just don't see much of elsewhere. When you look at bridal gowns on the catwalk or magazine ads, you get the impression that picking the perfect wedding gown is roughly the same as taking over an aging nuclear power plant. There's much too much seriousness. And a lot of stale heroin chic. The overall effect can be really ... yawn.

 

Maggie Sottero isn't afraid to get over-the-top romantic, but there's a lightness there. And some gowns are obviously influenced by Europe's bolder colors ... and Bollywood (yay!). So even if you're slightly chicken about what you actually walk down the aisle in, there's plenty of fantasy material to chew on, just in case that Sassy Punk Girl takes over during that all-important moment when you hand over the credit card.

 

Personally, I drool over that gorgeous, drop-waisted Stella with the sexy red belt. I would so wear that, if my hips approximated the model's instead of advertising my awesome childbearing abilities. And that's another of the cool things about these gowns: even as an accent, red gets used in some fresh ways.

 

Take a look at their current collection (be prepared for a big page load ... but it's so worth it). Which of the red (or "red-like") gowns are your favorite? The buzz seems to center on Amara Royale, but let's be all scientific and take a poll.

Top 10 Overplayed Wedding Songs

He's rude, he's crude, he's way politically incorrect. But he has a great point.

Rob over at GranolaBox.com posted a few songs you hear all too often at weddings, and probably shouldn't be hearing at all. A sample:

10. We Are Family - Sister Sledge
... for guys it’s like being in the tampon aisle in the supermarket.

5. Friends in Low Places - Garth Brooks
This song gets played at a lot of weddings because, up until a few years ago, it was the only country song popular enough to attract people to the dance floor ...

I'm keeping it kind of clean here, but you get the point. Go there, if you dare ...

UPDATE! After a little gentle ribbing from readers, Rob has graced us with the logical conclusion to this post, Top 10 Wedding Song Suggestions. Did he hit them?

Tags: overplayed weddings songs, wedding music