Princess Weddings

Japanese company Kuraudia Co. recently partnered with Disney to create a new line of gorgeous Disney Princess wedding dresses. This is far from the only company that makes wedding gowns inspired by our favorite animated heroines. Though they recently went out of business, the popular American bridal chain, Alfred Angelo, had recently revealed several new designs for Disney Princess inspired dresses that were more modern-looking than the ones from Japan. Designer Kirstie Kelly also unveiled a Disney Princess inspired collection several years ago, which has since been discontinued. Though the Americanized versions of these dresses hardly resemble classic princess fashion, the correlation between weddings and princesses seems to date back an eternity. Do the two concepts go hand-in-hand like a bride and groom at the altar? Let's find out.

Since the very beginning, most fairy tales that end with "happily ever after" included a wedding. In fact, the direct translation of the French version of "happily ever after," "ils vécurent heureux et eurent beaucoup d'enfants," is "they lived happily and had lots of children." I guess the marriage part is a given in France. Indeed, it is not until very recently that weddings to princes became unnecessary in animated princess stories. Though the older movies did not always include the wedding, it was usually assumed that it took place later. Some Disney Princess stories saved the wedding for the sequel, in the case of Aladdin and the King of Thieves or a short in the case of "Tangled Ever After." Regardless, princess-style weddings are usually the main goal for most engaged women.

In my opinion, the award for best princess wedding goes to Tiana, who got to have two very different weddings. The first one was the magical bayou wedding where her gorgeous dress appeared unexpectedly when she turned back from being a frog, and the second was a more modern-style wedding with a new dress and all of her friends and family. The animators clearly put a lot of time and effort into both of her weddings. Instead of an image of Tiana and Naveen driving away in a carriage and kissing like in Cinderella, they added all of the little details to her wedding ceremonies, like the magic of Mama Odie ordaining the two frogs at the bayou, her friends and family looking on proudly at her second wedding, and her post-married life with Naveen building their restaurant, wedding bands in tow on their fingers. I absolutely love her bayou dress. It's one of my favorite Disney Princess dresses. It looks like she's popping right out of a beautiful lily pad with a gorgeous pearl tiara. I even have a doll of her in it.

My favorite princess, Ariel, had a unique wedding because she got married on a ship so that both sides of the family could attend. King Triton rising out of the water to hug her and forming a rainbow with his trident are iconic and unforgettable details of the ending of The Little Mermaid. Ariel's wedding dress had some unique details too, like the seafoam green accents and the puffed sleeves. It also had a classic princess-style ballgown skirt, instead of the more modern mermaid cut that most Americal designers use for Ariel-inspired dresses. Her wedding dress appeared to be the main inspiration for her retired meet'n'greet dress when meeting her as a human in princess attractions at the Disney Parks. She even had an elaborate wedding cake, which unfortunately got demolished when Sebastian tried to escape from Chef Louie. When I got married, I sailed away on a cruise ship for my honeymoon but went with a more traditional ballroom for the venue. It would be rather difficult to convince all the guests to sail away on a ship in real life.

The one detail that the media tries to push on every bride for a princess-style wedding experience is the Cinderella horse-drawn carriage. Personally, I think this is an unnecessary ploy for money for two reasons. First, you would only actually be in the coach for maybe a couple of minutes, and second, it's a ridiculously expensive couple of minutes. It is absolutely possible to have a gorgeous and elegant princess wedding on a budget, and I have done it. People have asked me if I wanted to get married at one of the Disney castles, but it is absolutely not worth spending one's entire life savings in order to force their guests to get up before sunrise or in the middle of the night just to have the castle in their wedding photos while the parks are off hours. At my wedding, I had a custom-made ballgown from China and got married in a beautiful glittering ballroom surrounded by all of the people I love. That was more than enough to make me feel like a princess.

Giselle's wedding from Enchanted was an interesting situation because her enormous wedding dress was a big plot point in the movie, even though she never actually went through with the wedding. As a casual princess parody, Enchanted was meant to make fun of the trope of princesses getting married immediately upon meeting their prince. In doing so, it also demonstrated some of the hazards of princess fashion, such as how impractical it can be to have a full crinoline cage under your dress in everyday life. However, it also made it look very appealing to befriend forest animals to help out with the many intricate details of planning a wedding. Though Giselle's wedding dress is not my favorite due to being ridiculously overdone, it is iconic to her character because it demonstrates her creativity and shows just how over the top she was before entering the real world and calming down somewhat.

Some other fairy tale princess weddings of note include Odette's heavily swan-themed wedding in The Swan Princess, and Thumbelina's magical faery wedding, where she walked down a rainbow aisle and flew away on Cornelius's bumblebee. Both of these were themed perfectly to their stories' plots and characters, while also featuring members of their family in attendance. Disney seems to have started a new wedding trend in their live-action remakes for both Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast in which the brides' wedding dresses are decorated with hand-painted flowers. I suppose they did this in an attempt to make them stand out from the original animated versions, which failed they failed to do. However, they probably were able to sell more dolls and costumes with these unique designs.

Being a bride is an opportunity for any woman to feel like a princess. Just ask Princess Buttercup. It's a beautiful romantic event to celebrate true love surrounded by family and friends. There are many terrific weddings in princess movies as well as princess-inspired wedding details to purchase or DIY in real life. I already had my fairy tale wedding, and I can say with utmost certainty that the most important part is not the dress or the venue, but being with the people you love. That's what makes weddings seem so magical.