Wedding Veil

These days, not every bride wears a wedding veil anymore.  On this aspect, I am a little tranditional, I think I want to look like a traditional bride not only with a veil but with a blusher when I am walking down the aisle.  That's how I dream of myself as a bride :).  (One helpful hint for figuring out what I really want is to just imagine that I can have anything I want without any concern on money or other constrains.  And then work around it to make it more realistic and suitable)

One would never guess how expensive a brand new wedding veil costs.  My friend, Mary-Ann told me she got a second hand veil from a consignment store, Action Liquidation.  So I went there and realized that a cheapest veil they had was $49 plus tax.  And they only had one in that price and it's not what I like.  The others were all like $100 to $200 range.  Overall, there wasn't many choices anyway.  I was shocked by the price of a second hand veil, and afraid to even imagine how much a brand new veil would cost.

So I started my search on Ebay and found out a brand new veil could be as cheap as $20.  The only trick is like buying anything online, you don't get to try on.  And you really need to know what exactly you want in order to buy the right item.  So I started my research on veils and realized that I really need to try it on with a dress to see what I like.  I booked an appointment with Bryan's Bride, pretend to try on dress but really just there to put on a dress that's similar to mine in style and see which type of veil match the style of dress I have.  I am so evil :P

The major things to consider when choosing a veil are:
Length, Tier, Colour, and Finish.  There are a lot more details, but I personally think these four are the most critical ones.

For the length, the options are bird cage, shoulder, elbow, finger tips, ankle, and chapel train (or even cathedral train).  So I applied what I said earlier close my eye and dream of what I really want.  However, I couldn't conclude anything.  My dress has a cathedral train, so I was thinking maybe getting a floor length one to match the fanciness of my dress.  But according to what I read online, a ball gown type of dress the skirt is already full, it's probably not a good idea to cover the skirt with the veil.  So my second choice was fingertips which is the most popular choice among any kind of wedding gowns.  When I was in store, I tried on one with train, one to ankle, and one to finger tips.  None of them really stood out, so I asked for the saleslady's opinion, and she said she personally likes the shoulder to elbow length one.  I tried it, it did look much nicer, so at the end I decided to go for a shorter length.  I was glad that I went to a store to try on.

A veil can be single or multi-tier.  Since I want a blusher, I will have to have multi-tier.  I don't want the veil to be too complicated and over-powered my dress, I decided to stick with 2-tier veil.

Colour choices are simple, ivory, off-white, and white.  The lady from Bryan's Bride told me, unlike dresses, the veil colours are pretty standard.  She said I should make sure the dress and veil match in colour, else whichever is darker would just look dirty.  My answer was easy for this one just order something exactly match with my dress.

There are tones of different finishes for a veil.  I know I don't want something plain, but at the same time not something too overwhelming, so I decided scattered beading on the edge.

I ended up ordering the veil at the same place as I ordered my dress, so they can match the colour exactly, and using the same beading on the veil finish.  I ordered a 2-tier veil with 22"X25" length and it costs me $50.  It is a little more expensive compared to other sellers on Ebay, but it already beats the $200 veil in store with no beading.

Here is a very useful site for veil tutorial http://www.theweddingveilshop.co.uk/id530.html