let's talk veils...

Oh I loved this part. The other day, while visiting my parent's home, I stopped to have a chat with my mum about her wedding veil, and whether she could pull it out for me to have a look at. I had been thinking about it a few days earlier, how much I would love to wear something of hers, and you know what they say about great minds...a few days earlier my mum had pulled it out and hung it in her wardrobe! Along with my Holy Communion veil and HER Holy Communion veil! (Yes, she still has it! And it has not only been worn by my mum, but by all my aunts as well!)

Well, I was quite a happy bride-to-be!!! As many people would know, I'm quite a sentimental person (just like my Mumma and my Nanna!) and a veil is definitely something I would rather have a personal history, then bought brand new. And I think either of the ones my Mum has kept would fit the bill! Despite being an 80's veil (ooooh 80's weddings, you were a special bunch!), my mum's wedding veil is quite simple and pretty. She wore it as a head band, which gave it a bit more of that 80's "boof", but it would easily work on a hair slide for a more simple, tucked into the hairstyle look.

It's very long, and double layered (one section to go over your face, which I probably won't be doing) but I do love the style of it:


Unfortunately this veil doesn't have an elastic or anything to hang off at the moment, so the top is folded over the hanger and you can't really see how it would fall...


The second veil, my Mum's Holy Communion veil, is almost a miniature version of her wedding veil. It's two layers again, but has much less gathering so it sits quite flat and it is significantly shorter. Again, on a hair slide and tucked up into a hairstyle, it would look gorgeous.




I also really love the idea that this one has been worn by so many women in our family. I think at the moment, the Communion veil is the one I am leaning towards the most...but as I said to my mum, it will very much depend on the dress I end up with! And since I haven't even started looking for that yet, it's hard to really tell what I will end up with. Mum is going to speak with a wedding restoration place, to get the veils cleaned and see if they can lighten them slightly, but for how old the veils are (Mum's wedding veil is about 29 years old, and the Communion one is approx...well, it would be over 45 years old easily, since it was worn by my aunts as well, maybe even more then that!) there is hardly any discoloration at all! Here they are compared to my Holy Communion veil (in the middle), which is the newest of the lot and probably about...maybe 16 years old? (Whoops, I can't remember how old I was when I wore it!)




I apologise for the bad photos - I was on my own when I took the photos and got into some weird positions trying to take pictures of them against my hair but...well they just looked terrible! I promise to get some proper photos soon, I plan on attaching the veils to some slides, to get a better idea of what they might look like!!

I love the idea of wearing one of these SO much. Did any of you lovely newly weds out there wear something of your mother's? Grandmother's? MIL's? What about brides-to-be? Any plans to do something similar?