Veil Width Guide
Choosing the Right Veil Width & Why It’s So Important
As well as choosing the perfect length for your veil, it’s worth putting some thought into the veil width as well. Wedding dresses come in all kinds of shapes and sizes; Ball Gown, A-line, Mermaid, Sheath, etc. And there is a vast difference in the width of the skirt and train for each of those silhouettes. For short veils, the width also effects how full and ‘fluffy’ the veil looks, especially at the comb area. Our veil width guide will provide images to illustrate these differences.
How Wide Should A Short Veil Be?
If you’re having a short veil – fingertip length or above – the width is not quite so important as it is for a long one because it’s not affected in any way by the size of your dress’ train. For most bride’s choosing a short veil, we’d recommend going for the medium (standard) option of 72″ wide unless you wanted it particularly sheer (if so, choose the slim 54″ option) or particularly full and voluminous (if so, choose the full 108″ option).
How Wide Should A Long Veil Be?
For long veils, where the veil is going to actually lay on top of the train, then you need to think about the width a little more carefully. Essentially, the wider the dress, the wider the veil should be. You can also play around with this. For example, you can create a beautiful effect by having a veil both longer and wider than your train to fully surround it in tulle. Perhaps not quite to Meghan Markle lengths, but that kind of idea!
Our Recommendations
We wouldn’t really recommend having a long veil that’s narrower than your train, as this can look a bit skimpy. In one of our examples below you can see this in effect. We only had one dress to work with for our photo shoot but, in all honesty, we wouldn’t really pair the Brooklyn veil shown (slim width one) with an A-line dress. It’s better suited to a sheath, column or small mermaid gown.
On the opposite end of the scale, if you have a slim sheath dress, you don’t want to totally swamp it with a huge veil. A slim veil just a touch longer than the train (often sheath dresses only have a small, puddle trains), would suffice.
Veil Width Examples
The following pictures are to illustrate the amount of fabric you get with each of our 3 width options: slim (54″), medium (72″) and full (108″). As you can see, the width also affects the veil’s transparency quite a bit.
Floor Spread of Long Veils
The images below illustrate the diference in floor spread acheived by each of the three veil widths. As you can see the full width veil surrounds the train much more fully whereas the slim width veil is more of a narrow column of tulle.
We’re a big fan of wider width veils, especially on the even longer cathedral veils like the one further below. Here, the extra length seems to allow the veil’s full width to really show itself as it spreads out on the floor.
We hope this guide to veil widths has explained how much the fabric width you choose can transform your veil’s look. And we hope if you’re having a long veil you will perhaps avoid the slimmer widths, unless your dress is also very slim or doesn’t have a train. And instead, embrace the glorious drama of a full length AND full width veil in all its glory!
Other Guides
Check out our other guides on veil gathering, veil lengths, veil colours and veil beading.