The Most Memorable Wedding Dresses in the Movies
From Elizabeth Taylor in Helen Rose to Carrie Bradshaw in Vivienne Westwood, the film wedding gowns that shaped real ones, and the designers behind them.
A movie wedding dress has to do something a real one never does: tell an audience, in a single shot, who this woman is and what this wedding means. It is made to be seen from across a theater, often by a costume designer rather than a bridal house. And yet the gowns below have shaped real weddings more than almost any runway, because millions of people saw them at exactly the age when they were deciding what a bride looks like. Where the maker of a specific dress couldn’t be confirmed, we’ve said so.
The studio era
Father of the Bride (1950)
The dress that launched a thousand June weddings was designed by Helen Rose, MGM’s resident costume designer, for Elizabeth Taylor as Kay Banks in Father of the Bride. Rose also designed Taylor’s real bridal gown for her marriage to Conrad “Nicky” Hilton, and the film premiered at Radio City Music Hall on May 18, 1950, just twelve days after the real wedding. For postwar America, the combination of a movie star, a real wedding and a studio gown set the template for the big white wedding for a decade.
High Society (1956)
Helen Rose designed the costumes for High Society, Grace Kelly’s last film before she became Princess of Monaco, and in the same year she designed the dress Kelly wore to marry Prince Rainier III. The film was released three months after that wedding, and in it Kelly wore the Cartier engagement ring Rainier had given her. If you love the Kelly look, the lesson is restraint: long sleeves or a high neckline, fine fabric and almost no ornament.
The Philadelphia Story (1940)
Adrian, the MGM designer who dressed Joan Crawford and Greta Garbo, created the wardrobe for Katharine Hepburn in The Philadelphia Story. The clothes do the characterization: tailored, athletic and aristocratic. Adrian’s work here is a reminder that a bridal wardrobe is more than the gown: what the bride wears the night before and the morning of tells part of the story too.
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)
Travilla, who created the costumes for Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, is best known for Marilyn Monroe’s pink gown in “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend.” But the film ends with a double wedding, Monroe and Jane Russell side by side in white. Two brides in coordinating gowns, each with her own groom, is a striking picture of friendship at the altar, and a useful idea for any double wedding: coordinate the silhouette, vary the details.
Funny Face (1957)
There is no real wedding in Funny Face, but its finale finds Audrey Hepburn in a wedding gown by a stream outside a little church, and it is one of the most famous bridal images in film. Hubert de Givenchy designed Hepburn’s wardrobe and shared the film’s Oscar nomination for costume design with Edith Head. Its clean neckline, tea-length skirt and short veil still read as the definitive city-elopement look.
The Sound of Music (1965)
Dorothy Jeakins, nominated for an Oscar for her costumes for The Sound of Music, gave Julie Andrews’s Maria a gown made for a very long walk. The wedding takes place in the abbey Maria once couldn’t wait to escape, and the dress is modest and high-necked, with a veil and a long train that fills the aisle as the nuns sing. It is a lesson in designing for the venue: a cathedral aisle needs a train that can carry it.
The modern classics
The Graduate (1967)
We could not confirm who made Elaine Robinson’s gown, but its most famous appearance is its last. In the final minutes of The Graduate, Katharine Ross flees the church in her wedding dress and sits on the back seat of a city bus beside Dustin Hoffman, still in full bridal white among the startled passengers. It is the definitive image of the runaway bride.
The Princess Bride (1987)
Phyllis Dalton, the designer of Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago, created the costumes for The Princess Bride, which won the Saturn Award for costume design. Buttercup’s wedding dress for her rushed ceremony with Prince Humperdinck is pure storybook: medieval in shape, romantic in feeling.
Steel Magnolias (1989)
Julie Weiss designed the costumes for Steel Magnolias, and the wedding is all about color. “My colors are blush and bashful, Mama,” Shelby insists, and her mother replies that they are pink and pink. It is a gentle satire of the monochrome scheme, and still an argument for one.
Muriel’s Wedding (1994)
Terry Ryan’s costumes for Muriel’s Wedding earned a nomination for costume design at the Australian Film Institute Awards. Muriel spends much of the film trying on gowns under false pretenses, and her eventual wedding dress is everything she has dreamed of, for all the wrong reasons. It is the film’s sharpest joke: the dress is perfect and the marriage is a sham.
Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (1995)
Manish Malhotra designed the costumes for Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, and one of his most talked-about choices had nothing to do with bridal red. For the song “Mehndi Laga Ke Rakhna,” it was his idea to dress Kajol’s Simran in green, an unusual color for a Punjabi bride. That note of freedom, a bride in something other than red for the pre-wedding events, now feels completely natural at Indian weddings.
The new century
Sex and the City (2008)
The most talked-about movie wedding dress of its decade was Carrie Bradshaw’s Vivienne Westwood. In Sex and the City, costume designer Patricia Field, who styled the television series, has Carrie model bridal couture for a Vogue shoot; she falls for the Westwood gown, which the designer then gives her. The dress changes the wedding: once Carrie has it, her small, intimate ceremony grows into an extravaganza, which the film treats as a warning. The lesson for real brides: choose the wedding first, then the dress.
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 (2011)
Michael Wilkinson designed the film’s costumes, but Bella’s wedding dress was made by someone else. In April 2011, Summit Entertainment announced that it was by Carolina Herrera. Stephenie Meyer’s novel had described a simpler style than frilly Edwardian lace, and the finished gown, for Breaking Dawn – Part 1, had long sleeves and a vintage feel. Alfred Angelo sold an official replica, one of the clearest examples of a film gown going straight to the bridal market.
Mamma Mia! (2008)
Ann Roth was nominated by the Costume Designers Guild for her work on Mamma Mia!, a Greek island fantasy whose costumes, bridal and otherwise, are built for dancing on a hillside in the sun. It has become a reference for relaxed island weddings.
Little Women (2019)
Jacqueline Durran won the Academy Award for costume design for Greta Gerwig’s Little Women. Meg March’s modest wedding dress has none of the grandeur of the studio-era gowns, which is its charm: proof that a wedding dress can be romantic without being expensive.
Crazy Rich Asians (2018) and Bride Wars (2009)
Costume designer Mary Vogt dressed the guests at the CHIJMES wedding in Crazy Rich Asians, where Rachel’s gown impresses even Nick’s skeptical relatives: a reminder that a guest’s dress can steal a movie. Bride Wars is the opposite case. Its two brides, who have dreamed of June weddings at the Plaza since childhood, end up wrestling on the floor in their gowns, a satire of how much a wedding dress can come to mean.
The ones that got ruined
Some of the most memorable movie wedding dresses are memorable for what happens to them. In Kill Bill: Volume 2, the Bride’s plain dress at the chapel rehearsal is all the more shocking for what follows. The bride in REC 3: Genesis takes a chainsaw to a zombie outbreak at her own reception. Grace, in Ready or Not, fights her new in-laws through the night in a gown that gets more torn by the hour. And Emily, the Corpse Bride, rises from the grave in the tattered dress and veil she was buried in, which may be the most romantic of them all.
The Drama (2026)
The newest dress on this list comes with a precise credit. For The Drama, costume designer Katina Danabassis chose a traditional bridal gown called the Lawrence, by Jenny Yoo, for Zendaya’s Emma, from eight or nine options. It is a telling choice: a bridal design a real bride might buy.
How to borrow a movie look
Take one idea, not the whole costume. A film gown is built for the camera, for a few takes and a stand-in. Pick the element you love, such as the Givenchy neckline, the Kelly sleeve or the Westwood drama, and build around it.
Think about the venue. Maria’s train works in an abbey; Sophie’s easy dress works on a Greek hillside. Our guide to wedding dress silhouettes and fabrics will help translate a look to your setting.
Bring stills, not just titles. A bridal consultant may not have seen the film. Screenshots of the neckline, the back and the veil are worth more than a description.
Remember the rest of the wardrobe. As Adrian’s work for Hepburn shows, the rehearsal dinner, the going-away outfit and any reception change are part of the story too. Our dress code guide covers what guests should wear to each.
For more films, see the 30 best wedding movies of all time and the greatest wedding scenes.
Written and edited by the Today’s Weddings editors. How we research and check what we publish is set out in our editorial standards. Spotted something wrong? Tell us.
