A Tale of Two Veils and Two Shops

From the beginning of my wedding planning, I was pretty sure I wanted to wear a drop veil like the one pictured below.

^Photo credited to the super talented D.C. photographer Chris Baltazar. To see more of the beautiful bride check out the wedding of Heather and Moses on his blog!

I wanted my veil to be very sheer and simple, and I knew that I would not spend big bucks on a veil. Many of the veils I tried on at the shop ranged from $300-700. I had heard good things about Occansey Design and Veil Shop so I looked at both for a cheap drop veil. They both had them, but Veil Shop allows returns and Occansey Design does not, so I ordered two different lengths from Veil Shop. Overall it took about two weeks to get the veils in.

Unfortunately, it seems I'm just not a drop veil type of girl. I was swimming in fabric, it was unwieldy, and it just looked messy on me. Maybe I wasn't putting it on right, I don't know, but I knew I'd be fussing with it all day if I kept it for the wedding. So back they went. I haven't gotten my refund yet, but it's only been about a week since I sent them back. Otherwise my experience with Veil Shop was quite good and I'd recommend them.

So it was back to the drawing board. The problem was I had always envisioned myself in a drop veil, so I had no idea what type of veil would look good. I needed to try on a lot of different veils just to see the different styles, but I didn't want the hassle of going to a normal bridal shop and getting pressured to buy one of those $500 veils. So off to David's Bridal I went! It was awesome! They had a ton of veils in all different lengths and styles and they left me alone to try on to my heart's content. No pressure! I have to say, though, even their veils were still a little expensive ($100-250). Here is what I found out:

Length
I like long veils. But not TOO long. Regal Length and Cathedral length were out. All the fabric was so difficult to manage. Chapel length was manageable but still seemed slightly bothersome to keep up with. Waltz length would have been too short, though. I needed something in between.

Blusher
I've always known I wanted to wear a blusher, but I discovered that I did not want something as long as a fingertip length blusher, but I did want the blusher to be longer then shoulder length.

Fullness
And finally, I confirmed my earlier suspicions that poof = evil. I still wanted something really simple and sheer like a drop veil but that had more structure and that would drape behind my back instead of all around me. The poof of the veil around your head/face is measured by the width of the veil fabric. The wider the fabric, the more gatherings there will be at the comb, which results in a poofier look. Standard width for most veils is 72in. Extra full is around 108in, and sheer is 54in.

So armed with this information I went back to Veil Shop to see what I could order. Sadly, their veils start at the standard width and they didn't have any veils between the waltz and chapel length. So I popped back over to Occansey Designs. Occansey Designs can customize your veil in pretty much any manor you could want. So after looking at a ton of their picture galleries I decided I wanted the below:


^ A floor length veil of 76in long. This was a great compromise b/t the chapel and waltz lengths. I got the length I wanted without the hassle (note: my veil does NOT have rhinestones!)

^ A blusher that was elbow length. Once again, the perfect compromise between fingertip and shoulder length. Average elbow length is 29in but I customized mine to 27in, cause I'm short and the model is like 5'10. If I had to change anything I would go back and get the 29in, but really it's not that important (note: my blusher does NOT have rhinestones!)

I also had the above veil specially cut to a SUPER sheer width at the top of just 25 inches while retaining the width at the bottom of 54 inches. If I had to do it again I probably would have gotten the ULTRA sheer of just 12 wide at the top. 12inches = minimal poof.

The great thing about Occansey Designs was the super cheap price of $63 with taxes and shipping, and the 1 week turnaround for delivery. The only bad thing is that you can't return anything, so you better have a pretty good idea of what you are looking for. If I had to do it again I would make small adjustments here and there, but overall I really like the veil...it's a keeper! It gives me the sheer look of the drop veil that I wanted but it also gives me the structure of a normal veil that I needed.