ON SELECTING A DRESS:  Before she starts looking around, a bride should know all her W’s: Where am I getting married? What time of year am I getting married? What time of day? All of these factor into how to dress for the occasion. A trailing 15 foot train would be impractical at an intimate chapel wedding, and an unadorned, simple sheath wouldn’t match the tone of an elaborate affair in downtown Manhattan.

ON TIMELESS TRENDS: We’ve been doing strapless necklines in a serious way since the early 90’s, and to this day it’s still our best selling silhouette. A-lines have been popular for years; it’s a great cut for making you look taller and leaner. These days, the mermaid shape is also huge, and I think it has become a mainstay – it lets a girl who’s not that tall or slim have glamour without sacrificing fit.

ON CHOOSING ACCESSORIES: Get creative, think about adding your something blue into your earrings. Add an engraved disk to your garter (not the one that gets tossed), and hand it down to your daughter for her wedding and she’ll add her own engraved disk and so on and so on! I definitely believe in the superstition of something old, new, borrowed and blue.

ON PICKING A VEIL: The style you choose should be determined by the cut of your dress; you don’t want your gown and veil to compete if both are poufy. If you’re wearing a sleeker silhouette, like a bias cut or mermaid, you can go for high-drama, making the veil your big fashion statement.

ON GOING OVER THE TOP – TASTEFULLY:  This is your wedding, and it should reflect your sense of style. But it’s also a special day, so you can splash out a bit. Ball gowns, for example are always popular, even though most people don’t live ballgown lives. And if you want to change into another dress for your reception, I think that’s great, great fun! Just make sure to keep the venue in mind and choose your dress/dresses appropriately. Something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue and a sixpence in your shoe is an English couplet from the Victorian era. The familiar rhyme is meant to bring good luck to a bride who wears or carries the listed objects. “Something old” is a nod to continuity; “Something new” offers hope for the future; “Something borrowed” symbolizes sharing in a loved one’s happiness; and “Something blue” refers to purity and fidelity, which stems from a blue-clad Virgin Mary in Christian art. While the sixpence part has largely fallen out of favor, today brides of all faiths still adopt the rest of the custom, because luck is always a wonderful wedding gift – rain or shine.