The most critical element with this movie is, of course, the wedding (*spoiler alert* though, ed note: WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN IT TWICE ALREADY?), and this was misleading in the previews but there’s a dream sequence wedding and a real wedding. How did you delineate the two dresses from each other?
The script gave us a great opportunity to get inside Bella’s thoughts about the impending wedding. There’s a nightmare wedding and her perfect wedding. For the nightmare, we chose something that was a version of the dress that she would hate to wear. Something that’s uncomfortable and a dress Bella would be embarrassed in. It was stiff and had a boned bodice that showed a lot of bare skin which she’d be horrified by because she’s a bit of a tomboy.
There’s nothing very girly about her style so we had a huge, cumbersome, puffy skirt. We just tried to picture everything she’d find difficult to deal with and import that into a dress.
The real dress fit Bella like a second skin and I was really glad about how all that worked out. It reflects her simplicity and elegance. It’s not too girly, I thought it really hit the right note of having some vintage elements while working well for a modern woman.
