Wedding Dresses

By Sarrah Beaumont

With society's emphasis on slim, svelte and skinny, helped in no small way by the tri-media, you are probably wondering about appearing beautiful on your wedding day what with your Rubenesque figure. But have no fear! You can choose from many plus size wedding dresses to flatter your body. Here are tips to do so.

Know your Body Shape

As much as skinny women have varying shapes and sizes, so do voluptuous women. You have to determine your body shape - pear, apple busty - to narrow down your initial selection of plus size wedding dresses. After that, you can start looking at dresses that flatter your figure and hide your flaws.

For example, pear-shaped bodies look best with A-line dresses and square-necked tops that draw attention away from the body's lower half. Empire cuts and V-necks are good for apple-shaped figures while busty figures should opt for pencil-line dresses and tops with sleeves.

Carefully Choose Colors

Fortunately, plus size wedding dresses come in a host of colors that makes it easy to dress according to size and shape as well as skin tone. But whatever color you choose, it's always better to stay away from fancy details like ribbons and bows because that will only emphasize your bigness.

The key to wearing plus-size dresses on your wedding day is to go for the colors of the season. You can wear rich, deep colors like orange, deep purple and dark red during the fall and winter seasons while for the summer and spring seasons, you can lighten up with colors like pinks, lilacs, coral, yellow and light blues.

And even if you do choose to wear white on your wedding day, be sure that the hue complements your skin tone. For example, if you are very fair, avoid stark white but instead go for a dress with yellow undertones.

Wear Good Undergarments

The key to holding it all together, literally and figuratively, for plus size wedding dresses is to wear good undergarments. Do not underestimate the perk-up/flatten down ability of a good strapless bra or the hold-in-your-flab goodness of girdles and corsets!

Good underwear, even sexy lingerie, will help you feel good about yourself. You can then feel beautiful inside and out, literally.

Accessorize Appropriately

Although there is no limit to what you can wear with your plus size wedding dresses, you must keep them to a minimum lest you compete with the church decorations, or worse, look like a walking Christmas tree sans lights.

For accessories, you need to stick to one focal piece of jewelry that will highlight your best assets and draw attention away from your perceived flaws. With plus-size women, the jewelry usually is concentrated on the neck or on the ears simply because you want to draw attention to your glowing face. Chunky arm bangles can often emphasize chubby arms although you can always pick fine jewelry for this purpose if you can't live without arm embellishments.

Truly, your curvaceous figure is one that you should be proud of, skinny be damned. It's just a matter of choosing the right plus size wedding dresses to wow your guests and, most importantly, get your groom's salivary glands drooling.