Some women are saying no to the dreamy walk along the aisle in a flowing gown of lace and silk and chiffon. They will instead take their spotlight stroll in wedding pants.
For these brides -- young, older, straight and gay -- stripping away the tulle and tiaras allows them to explore more honest modes of self-presentation, they say.
"I think the typical vision of a bride is an outdated thing," said Courtney Raniszewski, 28, a freelance fashion stylist in New York, who says she will not wear a dress when she gets married next month.
"You don't want to try to adhere to an archaic image of a woman," she said. "You just want to feel like you."
Elizabeth Suzann, a Nashville, Tenn.-based designer, offers her Florence pant in washed silk crepe-back satin for $365 for brides who may feel as frustrated as she did when searching for a less feminine wedding outfit. She was inspired to "offer something that I didn't see out there, for people like me who don't feel comfortable in flowers and lace," she said of her White Collection.
When it came to trousers, she trusted her intuition. "I know there are a lot of women who feel much more comfortable, at home and powerful in pants," she said. "From the get-go they were always going to be part of the collection."
Kelsey Taylor Hunt, 29, a merchandiser at Etsy, wore a white leopard-print A.L.C. tuxedo suit jacket and cigarette pants (which her husband encouraged her to buy) to her New York city hall wedding in September 2014. "I believe more in the self-expression," she said of wedding attire.
Vanessa Fatton, 34, said she dislikes wearing dresses in her daily life, and so "a wedding dress was never a consideration for me." Something more her style? Fatton, a sales manager at Apparatus in New York, chose a Proenza Schouler peplum top and 3.1 Phillip Lim cuffed trousers for her New York ceremony in September 2014.
Katharine Polk, the designer and creative director of Houghton, also wanted to cater to often-overlooked brides by providing an array of options.
"People are getting married in their 40s, their 50s, their 60s," she said. "I don't think anyone in those age brackets wants to put on a sweetheart-neckline mermaid gown." She has offered pants -- along with shorts, rompers, gowns and skirt and top separates -- since the brand started in 2012. The Selena romper is $2,900 and the Pearl pants are $1,150.
Kate Siegel, director of public relations and marketing at Houghton, added, "I find that Australian and European brides are a lot more fashion forward and much more willing and excited to do a pants or romper look for their ceremony." Most American brides, she said, seem to save those styles for the reception.
A smattering of high-profile brides has also exchanged trains for trousers. Amal Clooney wore a Stella McCartney white two-piece custom suit (with black detail, and a matching floppy hat) for her 10-minute legal civil ceremony to George Clooney in Venice. (But she did opt for an Oscar de la Renta gown for the more elaborate wedding ceremony the same weekend.)
Olivia Palermo, a socialite, wed the model Johannes Huebl in white Carolina Herrera shorts with a tulle skirt overlay. And Solange Knowles, singer and sister of Beyonce, arrived at her ceremony in New Orleans in a Stephane Rolland jumpsuit.
"Wedding dresses, like every other garment in our wardrobes, reflect social and cultural change," said Edwina Ehrman, the curator of textiles and fashion at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
She suggested that the informality of pants and their traditionally gendered heritage made them perhaps "too assertive or too unisex" a choice for brides, reasoning that their recent popularity "may be no more than a reflection of a wider fashion trend and the current interest in clothes that blur traditional gender divisions."
As marriage is transformed alongside cultural reconsideration of gender, sexuality, adulthood and identity, it is conceivable that traditional wedding trappings, such as dresses, may fall away, according to Rebecca Traister, the author of All the Single Ladies: Unmarried Women and the Rise of an Independent Nation.
Mary Pat Lee, 29, a sales manager from Honolulu, decided to let her bridesmaids in on the lasting nature of pants and eased the strain on their wallets. She chose J. Crew floral silk pants for her bridal party, knowing that dresses would likely be unworn after her August ceremony in Honolulu. And they were on sale for less than $60.
When it comes to the media messages from the wedding industry -- currently worth $60 billion in the United States, according to an IBISWorld report -- Traister said, "the selling of the big dress as the pinnacle achievement of female adulthood is only intensified as it becomes clear that there are so many other achievements of female adulthood."
"It's not accidental that the fetishization of 'say yes to the dress' comes at the same time that the other things women are saying 'yes' to are things like advanced degrees and salaries that are competitive to men's and running for the presidency," she said.
Lili Garfinkel, 66, a national commercial real estate consultant based in New York, wore white palazzo pants for her second marriage. She and her husband even abstained from buying each other wedding bands for their ceremony, at New York City Hall in February. Instead, he borrowed one while Garfinkel slipped on three stackable rings she already owned.
Unlike at her first wedding in the 1980s, where "everything was within conventional parameters," Garfinkel felt sartorially and ceremonially unconstrained.
This time, she said, "I didn't feel like I had to yield to convention."
High Profile on 04/24/2016