Beach Wedding Shoes

If you have been inspired by all of the Greco-Roman dresses on the catwalks this season, or are opting for a sunny beach wedding, then you may well be hunting high and low for some classy sandals to pair with your dress.

This can be a challenge, as many sandals and flip flops are not designed to be worn as formal or evening shoes, and tend to come in over-the-top prints, vibrant colours or cheap materials.

Enter Gina Shoes of London, who has a beautiful range of sparkling leather sandals that are perfect if you are in need of a zero-heel slip on. Whether you want this type of shoe for comfort while you are waltzing around the dance floor, or to be able to feel the sand between your toes throughout your destination dream day, these shoes are bound to fit the bill.

My top picks: (from top to bottom) Aisha, Cael, or Trixie

All shoes available to buy online at http://www.gina.com

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Swap your old clothes for a wedding dress

The latest fashion craze to hit the internet is a clothes swapping site called Big Wardrobe. This site lets users list unwanted items of their wardrobe to be swapped or bought by other users. We've all fallen self-delusional shopping myths such as 'It will fit perfectly after my diet' or 'I will get so much use out of this, even though it doesn't go with the rest of my clothes,' and every one of us has at least one item that we have bought purely because 'it was a bargain.' Now you can swap these mis-purchases with people who will actually wear them, and what's more, they can send you an item of their own unusued wardrobe to fill the gap. There are some good items listed, and when I searched I found a never-worn Maggie Sottero wedding dress, so pop on over and have a rummage.

www.bigwardrobe.com

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Toilet Paper Wedding Dress Contest

If the current economy has given you a dose of the wedding budget blues, then take heart that there are plenty of creative ways to save money on your big day. Perhaps one of the most extreme is to make your dress out of toilet paper! Each year, Cheap Chic Weddings run a design contest with the challenge of making a wedding dress out of nothing but toilet paper and glue. The results are surprisingly impressive each year. This year's winner out of 564 entries from around the world, was a creation by Katrina Chalifoux of Rockford, Illinois, who's layered frills design has a distinctive flamenco flair. The dress has a textured flower pattern that is made of moulded paper. So if you are feeling creative, and have a few hundred rolls of toilet paper and extra time and patience, you could end up saving yourself hundreds. Just hope that it doesn't rain on your wedding day!

Check out the winners from previous years.

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Contact Us

If you would like to contact us, please email angel (at) theweddingguide.eu

or you can use the form at this link.

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About Us

The Wedding Fashion Files is part of The Wedding Guide, a company bringing information about weddings in Europe to brides from all over the world. This blog was created to highlight top wedding dress designers in Europe, review wedding fashion trends, and bring you the latest from the catwalks of Paris, Madrid, London and beyond.

We bring you the latest European trends in wedding dresses, bridal shoes, wedding fashion, celebrity wedding dresses and much more. We cover articles on bridal jewellery, pearl jewellery for brides, bridal hair slides and ornaments.

We also look at wedding fashion traditions from countries around the world offering an eclectic mix of information for brides wanting something a little bit different for their wedding look.

If you are interested in more information about getting married in Europe, why not visit some of our sister sites?

Boda Boutique
Online Wedding Accessories Shop selling wedding favours, disposable cameras, confetti, sweets, stationery, ring pillows and much more.

The Wedding Guide
Free resource for planning a wedding in Spain and other countries in Europe. Featuring articles and advice from top photographers, florists, wedding planners and other suppliers, as well as a full, searchable directory of wedding venues, reception locations, and wedding vendors for each country.

The Wedding Guide Blog
We highlight our favourite suppliers, news and events from the world of weddings in Europe.

Interested in writing for any of our sites?
If you are a keen writer and are looking for clips to add to your resumé, or work in the wedding industry and would like some free promotion, please write to me with any proposals/ queries. I am not currently paying for contribution, but all articles will be credited to you and can contain links to your own website and/or Adsense account. Paid writing/editing positions may be available in the near future and previous contributors will be considered first.

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Pasarela De Novios - Madrid's Bridal Exhibition

Not to be outdone by it's northern contemporary, Barcelona, Madrid also holds it's own huge wedding fashion-fest each year. Madrid has long been synonymous with European fashion, and while the offerings at Barcelona Bridal Week may be more geared towards a commercial audience, The Pasarela de Novios at the Puerto de Europa Exhibition would not have dissapointed even the most hardcore fashionista.

Highlights:

The collections were shown off well on the circular catwalk, allowing the dresses to be seen from all angles.

Well known Spanish designer, Agatha Ruiz, (for Prada) expressed herself artistically with creations featuring cut out flower and heart motifs. Draped in organza and ribbons and topped off with large bows, her models looked more like wedding presents than brides. I will give her brownie points for designing wedding dresses with pockets though. (It's about time someone did!)


Agustin Torralbo'srich colours and pleated fabrics had a sensual air of oppulence and if any of these dresses were chosen for your bridesmaids you can guarantee that they won't spend the rest of their lives stashed in a hidden wardrobe.

Dresses by Anna Torres were delicate and ephereal, in light fabrics such as muslin, silk and lace, though the collection didn't seem to have a cohesive focus.

Themes from the Barcelona Bridal week, such as feathers and greek styles were taken a step further by native Madrileño Dyos. This was the designer's first foray into designing wedding dreses, and the collection seemed a bit hit or miss, with some designs looking polished and couture, while others just seemed clumsy.

Gracia Galindo's 'champagne' gold dresses offered a welcome variation on the traditional white, while other dresses had a flamenco flair in their front slit skirts and ruffled hems and sleeves.

Isabel Zapardiez showed her flair and passion for tailoring, with some truly stunning and unique cuts.

There were more empire waists and fluid lines from Javier Larrainzar.

Maria Alegre took the feather fashion fad to the extreme, by having some of her models hold live hawks. Even this couldn't distract from her beautiful, bold prints and elaborately embroided gowns.

Martin PerezRippoll threw caution to the wind, and showed skin in short skirts and sheer fabrics.

Although several of Mercedes Alonso's gowns could have had her arrested for colour abuse, her silver and white wedding dresses were some of the nicest from the whole exhibition, with glittering beadwork and lace.

Novissima has been trying to breath life and energy back into it's stale brand, and while the dresses on show were nice they showed no where near the same artisic flair and daring sense of fashion that the other designers possessed.

Petro Valverde displayed dresses that were more structured than most other collections, and offered a refreshing change from the free flowing draped fabrics of the Greco-Roman inspiriation.

That´s all folks! Hopefully the legnth of this post gives you some idea as to why it took me a bit longer than I'd expecting to get it finished. The next few will be bite-sized, I promise!

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Barcelona Bridal Week

Ok, so I'm really late with this post, but I kept getting sidetracked on profiles of some really great Spanish designers. (more to come on that in future posts.)

Barcelona Bridal Week is one of the highlights of the European fashion calendar, and one of the largest features for the wedding industry in the world. Top designers such a Pronovias, Amanda Wakely, and Christian Lacroix show off their latest collections, while new raw talent has the opportunity to introduce fresh ideas to the world of wedding fashion.

Feminine was the key word for most designers this year, with light fabrics and delicate sillouettes trimmed with lots of girly lace, frills, and flowers. Spanish designers Jesus del Pózo and Rosa Clara were both heard saying that their goal was to compliment the female form and create designs that were elegant and sophisticated.

Many collections showed more than a nod to classicism, with greek and roman style gowns that are sure to set the trend for 2009 brides. This should make most brides happy, as the high waistlines, loose, flowing skirts, and gathered fabric that are the hallmarks of this era are pretty universally flattering.

Of course, it wouldn´t be a truly couture fashion show if all of models appeared polished, elegant and conventional, and if high-fashion high-jinx were somewhat absent from many of the designers' simple dresses, it was spilling over in abundance when it came to headwear.

Large, wide-brimmed hats were on show, while over-the-top feather fascinators were all the rage, with Victorio and Luchiano offering a spectacular show of models with white painted faces, red lips, and clusters of huge, white feathers branching out from their hair.

De la Cierva y Nicolás even went so far as to incorporate feathers into one of their wedding gowns, with a suprising subtley. Why the model was also carrying a white teddybear, I'm not sure, but that's one fashion trend I don't see brides adopting for their trip down the aisle.

Swarovski and Pronovias paired up for a truly sparkling display of gowns (by Manuel Mota) jewellery and accessories, featuring elements from Swarovski's Crystalized range of embellishments. There are even a pair of shoes encrusted with crytals for a bride who yearns for a Cinderella style shoe.

With all of this, it is no wonder that Barcelona calls itself the City of Brides.

More about Barcelona Bridal Week.

Loving:
Jesus Piero

I love the subtle glow of this ivory silk, and the modesty of the jacket. This style would be great for an older bride.








Hating:
Any and all stripey dresses!











Just for Fun:
No, I wouldn't wear it down the aisle, but I love the whismsical extravagence of the layers of this dress.










All images barcelonabridalweek

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Tipsy Feet

We love these Sex In The City inspired shoes from Prezzybox They fold up into a neat, teeny bag while you are out for a night on the tiles in your fabulous high heels, and are a welcome relief for your feet at the end of the night. Your three inch torture devices can then be stored in the handy, stylish bag. How clever! We are sure that Carrie and the gang would approve. No more bare feet on concrete for the walk home, silver sandals in hand. We’ve all been there! These fold up shoes are available in three colours to match any outfit (Prada or Primark).

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Sex in the City Movie - the Wedding Dress Controversy

Sex and the City has always had it´s roots in fashion. From Series 1, millions of women tuned in religiously each week to see what quirky trend Carrie would set next, what waiting list Samantha was on for the next must-have bag of the season, and what shoe designer was set to become the next household name. The end of the series created a void in many women´s television schedules that was ironically filled with uniform clad characters working in hospitals or police stations. It seemed we had to return to the glossy magazines for fashion ideas. While these fashion bibles have always been a staple of any good girl’s style education, they remain aloof and impersonal in typical bookish manner. Only TV can give us real, moving, breathing, menstruating, weight-fluctuating, job switching women to give us examples of how we can mesh the random collection of items in our wardrobe into our own individual sense of style. And the SITC girls did it so well.

So it´s no surprise that the launch of the movie has created such a flux of fashion commentary. Reams of paper and billions of kilobytes have already been filled with comments, both bad and good, about what the girls are wearing, with Carrie´s wedding dress causing the most sensation.

Like most of Carrie´s outfits, the Vivienne Westwood creation is pure love-it-or-loath-it fashion. While most people express an overwhelming dislike for the gown, I find it hard to see why. The silk gown is immaculately tailored and does a fabulous job of making Sarah Jessica Parker´s androgynous frame look feminine, and although it does have over-top proportions of buffon layers and highly stylized bodice it is noticeably lacking in any frills, ruffles, sparkles or sequins to push the designer statement over the edge. At the end of the day (or the movie) would you really expect to see Carrie in anything that resembled an off-the-rack, run of the mill gown? Imagining her gliding up the aisle in an elegant silhouette satin number or timeless princess cut gown seems out of character.

Such classic style was better expressed by Charlotte in her Badgley Mischka gown for her wedding to Harry, or her Vera Wang gown when she married Trey.

One of the things we loved most about Carrie was her quirky style, and who better than Queen Viv of the Fashionverse to help her make a bold look on her wedding day.

Stlye Credits:

Carrie´s Sex in The City Wedding Dress: From Vivienne Westwood's Fall 2007 Wake up, Cave Girl!

Official Sex in the City Movie Site

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