{Divine Connections}

Dear Bride-to-Be:
The color blue, long considered a "bridal" color, has divine connections. Blue is the color associated with Mary, mother of Jesus, and with Brigit, the Celtic goddess of healing and the arts. Brigit, called the maiden goddess of springtime, was also known as Bride—who gave her name to a woman about to wed. Therefore, as a bride, you are the namesake of a goddess!

Use your time well in this legendary bridal spotlight. Start or continue practices that take care of you...mind, body and spirit: Journaling; eating healthy foods; doing stretch exercises; breathing slower and deeper; having some quiet, reflective time each day. This helps keep your mind clear, your body vibrant, and your heart open to receive and give love. It's just naturally what a goddess would do!

Love. Listen. Let go.
...with love from  Cornelia

ps: And if you're feeling that "goddess vibe," then you'll love my book, The Bride's Ritual Guide: Look Inside to Find Yourself....

[Photograph: Priscilla Wannamaker]

{Choices of Your Heart}

Dear Bride-to-Be:

“Wearing a wedding gown is so weird,” a bride was quoted in The Bride Revealed, a book by wedding photographer Leslie Barton. “It’s not like any other dress. I felt so grown-up and elegant in it. At the same time, it felt like a costume. Even during my wedding, when I saw my reflection, I was startled. ‘Who is that?’ It’s such an important transformation, from the usual jeans and T-shirt to a formal wedding gown. I felt it strengthened the commitment, that what I said on this day would be with me for the rest of my life.”

This bride reveals something that you might soon find out for yourself. That your wedding gown, and all the other rituals you use for your wedding—the music, flowers, exchange of rings, even your vows—are all outward expressions of your inner self. They are a reflection of what you hold in your heart and meant to, as this bride shared, “strengthen your commitment” to all you hold dear.

And you thought your wedding dress was only to make you look like a dream! It’s not only a “transformation from jeans to formal gown,” but also a transformation of your heart—deepening your commitment to your best self. Make the things you choose for your wedding, choices of your “big old beautiful open heart!”

Love. Listen. Let go.

....with love from Cornelia

[Photograph: Leslie Barton]

{The Return of Lace}

Dear Bride-to-Be:

Whether you are wearing a lace gown or just have a bit of lace-trimmed lingerie for your wedding day, lace has a special legacy for brides. So I thought you would enjoy this article I wrote, recently published in the winter issue of Season magazine.
....with love from Cornelia

The Return of Lace

Its early Venetian name, Punta in Aria—“stitches in air”—said it all: ethereal and mysterious. Lace has charmed and bewitched both men and women for centuries, worn as high-status fashion accessories at a time when you were what you wore! When lace became de rigueur for aristocratic brides, it was worn for its prestige (only the rich could afford it) as much as for its beauty (lace always captivated!)

There are stories from centuries past of brides who wore yards and yards of precious handmade needle and bobbin laces—worth a king’s ransom—but modern wedding history starts with Queen Victoria. Big white wedding gowns have been around since she broke with the silvery custom and chose “plain white” for her wedding in 1840. To make a statement—after all she was already queen of an empire—she called on England’s beloved yet faltering lace industry to create deep borders of handmade Honiton lace to trim her dress and silk tulle veil. Of course her wedding was highly publicized so the lace legacy was re-ignited and became associated with brides through the 1950s, highlighted by Grace Kelly’s silk taffeta gown with a fitted antique Brussels lace bodice and high collar. (What 50s-era bride didn’t want to look like a princess?)

Even when lace was out of fashion, it was typical for American women making a voyage “to the continent” to bring back a rose point lace veil from Belgium or Valenciennes lace yardage from France with dreams of a wedding in mind. Through the social upheavals of the 1960s and 70s, lace as well as traditional wedding ceremonies took a back seat until Princess Diana’s royal nuptials turned weddings back into stylish events and romantic, lace-trimmed gowns became the favorite of 1980s brides. (The lace appliquéd on Diana’s corseted bodice once belonged to Queen Mary, Prince Charles’ great-grandmother.)

In the 1980s and 90s, my bridal art-to-wear shop in Atlanta followed this practice of incorporating vintage laces into new gowns—“elegant recycling” as one of my designers called it. When creating Lady Mary’s wedding dress, Downton Abbey’s costume designer used this technique by repurposing an antique lace veil she found; it became the centerpiece in a delicate crystal-trimmed, tabard-style silk chiffon confection inspired by royal brides of the early 1920s.

Of course the most memorable lace revival was Kate Middleton! Her sweeping designer wedding gown with its sheer long sleeves and lace trimmed bodice and skirt—laces handmade by artisans at the Royal School of Needlework at Hampton Court Palace—set the fashion runways abuzz. Other royal brides followed suit with sumptuous dresses of the finest machine-made laces: Sweden’s Princess Madeleine married this year wearing a Valentino pleated silk organza gown with an open lace bodice; Princess Stephanie and Princess Claire of Luxembourg royalty both recently wore dreamy Elie Saab couture gowns with crystal- and pearl-encrusted Chantilly lace like something out of the most shimmering fairytale … and something only lace’s mystical filigree nature could inspire. □

[This is a reprint of my article, "The Return of Lace," featured in the winter 2013-2014 issue of Season magazine. To read it in the magazine's layout online, scroll to page 46.]