I brought a veil to the shoot because I figured I should. It was fingertip length, nothing elaborate, just tulle and a thin comb. I almost didn't wear it—the dress didn't seem like it needed one, honestly. It's tea-length, satin, strapless, hits me a few inches below the knee. Simple. Clean. The kind of thing you'd wear to a nice dinner, if a nice dinner involved flower murals and a photographer following you around.

But I put the veil on anyway, and it worked better than I thought it would. Not because the dress needed saving—it didn't. But because the contrast was nice.

The dress is so unfussy that the veil actually got to be the "bridal" part, which took the pressure off the dress itself. It just had to sit there and look good, which it does.

The folds at the waist don't pinch, the satin has a little weight to it so it doesn't wrinkle every time you move, and you can sit down without having to yank at anything.

I remember walking across the street between shots and some woman on a bench said "you look beautiful" and I said thank you and kept walking, and I remember thinking how I didn't feel like I was wearing a costume. I just felt like I was wearing a really good dress that also happened to have a veil with it.

That's the whole thing, really. If a dress makes you think about anything other than the person you're marrying, it's the wrong dress. This one didn't.