Choosing from Different Wedding Veil Styles

I just bought a wedding veil on an impulse.

Kinda like how I bought my wedding dress, actually.

I thought wedding planning was a stressful and agonizing process? 

But no, this was pretty easy.  And I suppose it wasn’t a TOTAL impulse.  See, I first started thinking about wedding veils when I was trying on wedding dresses.  The salesperson wanted to sell me a…I mean, let me see how a veil would look with my dress.  The veils she put on me didn’t seem extraordinary.  Big sheet of tulle.  And the prices were kind of crazy.  I wasn’t going to drop another $100 or so for those.  Sure the dress buying process is emotional, but I have a little bit more self control than that.  (Really hard to say no to those tiaras though…)

Well, fast forward a bit.  I came across a wedding website that was having a giveaway for a custom made bridal veil.  Part of the contest requirements was to tell what you were looking for in a veil.  So, knowing how outrageous veil prices can be, that seemed like a contest worth trying for!  So I spent some time researching different wedding veil styles.  I learned about bridal illusion and organza.  I looked at beaded, lined, and lace veils.  I looked at elbow, fingertip, and cathedral veils.  And in the end I think my entry sounded like this:

“Thank you for this opportunity!  My dream wedding veil would need to be ivory to match my gown.  My favorite veils are 3 tier veils because to me, they seem to mimic the shape of a traditional wedding cake, and I want a very traditional wedding.  It would be a bridal illusion veil so I could use the top tier as a blusher.  And since my dress has a lot of intricate beading in the bodice, instead of competing with the beading, I’d like just a simple pencil trim.  I think that would look elegant and give it just enough structure.”

Wedding veil styles noob to pro in a matter of hours.  I was pretty proud of myself.

I didn’t win though.

So fast forward to this week.  I was in A.C. Moore looking for ribbon for gifts for Adam’s family (for hosting me for the whole summer) and “accidentally” ended up in the wedding isle.  And I just happened upon a “child’s veil.” 

Hmm.

So it was just a little version of a bridal veil?

I’m kinda little. 

It was $12.

I had $12.

So I grabbed the veil and a ton of sparkly white and silvery seed beads and tried it on at home.  (No, I didn’t try it on with my wedding dress: not until I lose another 5 pounds). 

Well, I wasn’t 100% thrilled with the veil.  For one thing, it really was very short.  If I was wearing a tea length wedding dress, which is pretty hot right now, I bet it would have looked cute.  But I don’t have the dress or legs for that.  And another issue I had with the veil is the fact that there was a ball of tulle at the top that didn’t look so cute.  In their defense, the picture on the box discloses that perfectly well, I was just hoping it wouldn’t look as bad in real life.  So I returned my “priced right veil” and all the beads.  FYI, the veil WITH all the beads was about $32. 

So I finally broke down and looked on Etsy.  Blogging brides have raved about Etsy.  I’ve just been too scared to look on it.  It just seemed so vast, and have so many hidden treasures where would I start?  And more importantly, if I started, would I be able to stop?

I started with the search function (Duh, why did I stress that before looking at the site?) and typed in the sort of wedding veil I was looking for.  And 8 veils popped up.  Just 8.  Not 327 generic pages of all different wedding veil styles for me to flick through all night.  (Partly relieved, partly disappointed).  And one of those 8 had the following description:

*Ivory (nice)

*3 tier (excellent)

*Bridal illusion (what I wanted for a blusher)

*Delicate pencil trim

Ding ding ding ding!

Price:  $42.

So for an extra $10, I don’t have to spend hours embellishing the edge with hand sewn beads which I didn’t even want in the first place.

I waited until after my shower (to give me time to think, since I worry that impulse buying for my wedding could become an expensive habit if I’m not careful).  But the more I pondered, the more I thought, “I’m not going to find a wedding veil that's cheaper and is exactly what I said I wanted.”  And considering I hadn’t changed my mind in the months that passed between entering that contest and today, there was no reason to wait.  The seller’s feedback regarding the quality of the wedding veils was nothing but positive.  There were a few bad reviews about speed of delivery, but I’m not in a hurry to receive it, so even if I was one of the unlucky few (out of 98% positive) it would not be a real problem for me. 

I gots myself a veil!
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Photos courtesy of:
Lori05871 
ToOb  
hkinuthia  
Lee J Haywood  
jeredb  
David Chartier  
YourDreamTouch Photography