A wedding, the most important and the most awaited, life-changing, roller coaster experience for almost every person on the face of the earth, can be an expensive proposition.

Every time you plan an attractive wedding, the most-talked-about thing is the wedding dress of the bride.

The wedding dress—sounds heavy and expensive—is part of the main wish of every girl since she learned to walk. She wants to have a dream-come-true wedding where her prince charming comes and sweeps her off her feet with a deep passionate kiss. Then off they go to live in their happily-ever-after world.

Let’s get to the real story; I think in her imagination, the girl always sees herself in this long, gorgeous, flowing, shiny, white wedding dress; that’s the only part of the picture that is so clear to her. The face of her prince charming, the color of the horse, and the size of the castle keeps changing depending on her mood.

So when the proposal is made and is accepted, the first issue to be immediately attended to is what type of wedding dress she is going to wear.

And I am not surprised as many of the Hollywood films are made with the wedding dress as the heart of the story. Every time there is a celebrity wedding, the newspapers and magazines always stuff their long columns with the kind of wedding dress, how it is made, who made it, the fitting, and every other minute detail of the dress. I even bet a lot of pride, culture, and effort goes into making that “Expensive Wedding Dress.”

How expensive can a wedding dress be? Why should it be expensive? Is it mandatory to be expensive?

A wedding dress is always a special dress in our lives, but it’s usually not the dress people talk about when they share the memories that were created at the wedding. Wedding dresses don’t always have to be expensive.

The wedding dress is a part of the wedding; the wedding is the part of your life where you commit yourself to a person to be with through thick and thin, in health, and in sickness.

There are lots of designers and boutiques that exclusively design wedding dresses. There was this dialogue in the Bride Wars movie, “You fit into the designer wedding dress,” but not “the designer wedding dress is made to fit you.”

Dresses are sometimes specially made for the bride so she looks more beautiful. But it is suggested to not spend beyond the bride’s capability so that she is left with nothing else except the expensive wedding dress.

Yes, plan the amount that needs to be spent on the wedding dress out of the wedding budget. It is not advisable to spend a whopping amount of money on the dress.

Shop smartly, get it to suit the occasion and the conditions, and attend all the fittings.

An expensive wedding dress should not be a dress that makes you look like a lost doll in it. The dress should make everyone believe you are the happy bride with a glow on your face wearing the dress that is perfect for you. You and your body and elegance should be enhanced by the dress. It’s a dress for the most-awaited moment of your life; don’t get lost in the spending of the “big” bucks, and make it about feeling like the special bride you are.

Some people preserve the dress for the rest of their lives as a memory. Some people add a little lace, borders, and flowers to remodel it into a dress that can be reused.

The wedding dress will always be special and will remain special despite the marriage. Make it a really special experience that doesn’t leave you with a bunch of huge bills you can’t pay.