Her dress was designed by Norman Hartnell, who started to

The Sci Fi Wedding Dress No One Will Ever Forget Your Wedding

More and more women are getting hip to one of life most important secrets: Dating the Big Man on Campus only gets you heartache and mediocre bedroom skills ?at best. A good nerd, however, really knows how to treat a lady. Thus the upswing in interest in science fiction-themed weddings: Make your wonderful geek happy on this day, and hel make you happy for the rest of your life.

If youe already a proud nerdette, you probably already have some strong ideas about what you romantic wedding dresses might want in a science fiction wedding dress. For the rest of you, we have some pointers.

First, you must choose your alliance.

One of the most important things to decide is whether youe more of a Star Wars or a Star Trek kind of couple. You can like both, but when the chips are down, almost every nerd has a strong preference.

If youe in the Star Wars camp, youe in girly-girl luck ?Princess Leia wears some stunning dresses, and tends to favor white. The one she wears through most of the original Star Wars (which is, confusingly, the one called Episode IV: A New Hope ?just relax and go with it) is beautifully draped. It has a high neck and extremely demure lines, but is soft and flowing enough to hint intriguingly at her figure. And, yes, you can accessorize with side hair buns and a delicately feminine blaster. If you like to show a little more skin and go with a hairdo that authentic but doesn bring pastries to mind, try Leia dress from the awards ceremony at the end ?it a white and gold goddessy number that would turn heads even if you weren walking down the aisle under rows of crossed lightsabers.

When you bring up Leia-inspired wedding dresses with your groom, don be surprised if he mentions another outfit for your honeymoon: the metal bikini she wears in Return of the Jedi. If you can find one, give it a go ?youl look stunning, and your groom will officially be the Luckiest Dork in the Galaxy.

Padme and Amidala also wear nice gowns that could possibly be wedding dresses, but these appear in The Trilogy of Which We Do Not Speak. If your groom mentions fashion designer vera wang theming your wedding around these later Star Wars installments, you may want to give your relationship some more thought. Unless he suggests you both paint your faces in red and black stripes and go as Sith lords. That would be totally worth it.

If you are a Star Trek couple, you have a huge variety to work with ?both in species and in incarnations of Trek itself. If you go with the original Kirk-and-Spock series, you get to wear a fun mod mini wedding dress with high boots, assuming youe crew. Pile your hair up high and wear an Uhara-style earpiece for extra bonus points. You can also go mod as an original Trek alien babe, or your can also go flowy and ethereal, with hippy-dippy colors. For authenticity, expose an odd bit of your body ?for example, a cutout above (but not revealing) your navel, and consider dyeing your skin green.

If you decide to go Next Generation, Voyager, or Deep Space Nine, your options multiply faster than an armful of Tribbles. Uniforms for female crew members are a little more demure in these Trek incarnations, but wearing your Starfleet Formal Dress Uniform is certainly appropriate for such an occasion.

There are other human wedding dresses worn during the various series, but as long as youe come this far, why not go alien?

Though Vulcans are cool, we strongly advise against a Vulcan wedding due to the unfortunate symbolism; Vulcans don feel emotions and only have sex once every seven years. Save Vulcan Fun Time for volatile family dinners or the workplace.

And really, if youe going to go with a Star Trek alien wedding, go Klingon or go home. You can get away with lots of Klingon wedding dress styles ranging from sexy vixen to neck-snapping warrior. If youe ever fantasized about wearing a tight leather skirt with metal studs to your wedding, this is the time. You can also get away with a traditional human white wedding dress if you must ?just accessorize it with a prosthetic ridged Klingon forehead and youl be fine. If anyone questions you on your dress, tell them they have insulted your honor and they must apologize or be killed. Theyl shut their yaps. Plus youl probably get an extra-good wedding present.

A Klingon wedding ceremony of course involves a Klingon officiant and Klingon vows. Your heartfelt ceremony will conclude with the moving sentiment oday, you are un-alone. Today your Empire begins.?br />

That touching swell of patriotic Klingon emotion is the only reason your Mom will be crying. Wee sure of it.

Wedding Dress Tradition And Queen Elizabeth's Love

Wedding dresses are more often than naught, the center piece to most weddings. With that being the case, can you imagine if that wedding was a royal one? We often think of beautiful gowns made from the finest of materials. That hasn't always been the case. Sometimes it's the love affair that overshadows the dress. That was evident in the love between Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip.

Queen Elizabeth and Lieutenant Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, were distant cousins that met each other when the Queen was just a 13-year old princess. It was known that Elizabeth was completely smitten with Philip and therefore, not only were they cousins, but also became good friends as evidenced from their letters to each other. Although they had a very long courtship, the couple finally decided to get engaged in 1946, but chose to keep it a secret.

Throughout their courtship, Queen Elizabeth and Philip had a number of things pulling at their relationship. Often royalty married other royalty, whether they were related or not. However, a couple of strikes against Philip was that he was not simply vera wang dresses a wealthy man, as well as he was Greek Orthodox.

Regardless, the thing that brought the most hardship to the couple was that Elizabeth's mother did not want her to marry Philip. The reason she was so against their impending marriage, was that back in 1946 England had just come out of World War II and even though Philip was not German himself, he did spend some of his school years in Germany. In addition, the word was that Philip's three sisters had married German Noblemen, in which led others to believe he had some Nazi ties.

Despite her mother's disapproval, their engagement was announced publicly on July 9, 1947. The wedding took place just four months later on November 20, 1947. Although the war was over, it still caused some problems for the wedding. Elizabeth was eventually allowed to marry Philip; however his German relatives were not allowed to attend the ceremony.

During the war, England had a system of rationing in place. So even though she was royalty, Elizabeth still had to save up her rations for fabric so that she would be able to purchase her wedding dress. Fortunately she was able to get enough rations set aside; otherwise it would not have been a true royal wedding without a spectacular wedding dress.

Her dress was designed by Norman Hartnell, who started to work on the dress three months before the wedding so that it would be done in time. Hartnell started his design with a great understanding for what kind of a dress he had to make. After all, this was for the royal wedding and with that he knew everyone would be watching, so he wanted it to be perfect for Queen Elizabeth's special day.

After receiving the payment for the dress, Hartnell said he "searched the London art galleries for a classic inspiration and found a Botticelli figure in ivory silk with a trail of smilax, jasmine, syringa and some white rose like flowers." Finding the right materials for the dress was hard due to the aftermath of the war, so in the end the designer ended up having to order 20,000 pearls from the United States.

The gown's fabric for the train was satin from a mill at Lullington Castle in England, which he did not want to use at first, but Elizabeth's mother insisted that it be from there. The body of the wedding dress was a soft Chinese silk from a Scottish firm called Winterthur, which caused a little controversy because they were saying it was made by enemy silk worms from Japan. However, Hartnell was able to prove that the silk was from China. The dress was embroidered with orange blossoms, syringa, white rose and jasmine. Wheat was also included in the design, which represented fertility.

The embroidery also included sparkling crystals and pearls that outlined the neckline, hem, sleeves and the 15-foot train. The dress also included a silk tulle veil, with a small diamond tiara and a simple yet beautiful pearl necklace to wear around her neck. The beautiful bride walked down the aisle of the famous Westminster Abby with her father King George VI.

Elizabeth had a very sweet bouquet that was made of white orchids with some sprigs of myrtle, which had come from the bush that Queen Victoria had planted and grown from her own wedding bouquet. After the wedding the bride placed her sweet bouquet at the grave of the Unknown Soldier which is a tradition in England's royal weddings.