About the Dress

Portia by Jenny Yoo! I loved wearing this at my wedding and hope you will too. I wanted something elegant, unfussy and drop-dead gorgeous, and Portia delivered on all of that. I got so many compliments the day of, and it photographs beautifully.

It's a clean, matte ivory crepe with a square neckline and shoulder straps that hits right at the natural waist and then flares out gently. The back is scoop with a little bit of floral lace detail and buttons, and there's a subtle, short train with graduated floral embroidery too. You could easily accessorize this in any direction; it's a perfect blank slate.

Compared with all the super heavy, stiff, scratchy other gowns I tried on, Portia was SO comfortable; it was so soft and lightweight that I could have slept in it. I think it really made me more present and at ease during the whole day. Y'all, I would live in this dress.

I'm a size 18 in most normal clothes, and the 22 (add two sizes for wedding dresses) fit like a glove just about out of the box. No alterations to the hip, back or waist needed, just hemming it and shortening the straps (which started super long). It definitely picked up some dirt along the train the day of, but I've had it professionally dry-cleaned, and I'd say it looks no worse for wear. The material wrinkles pretty readily, but it was really easy to de-wrinkle with a handheld garment steamer.

All pictures are of me in the dress, but you can find tons of other shots of the dress on models or other brides on the reviews on the Jenny Yoo or BHLDN website, along with more details about it.

Alterations

I had pretty minor alterations done. I had the dress hemmed to my height in shoes (I'm 5'7" and wore 2.5-inch heels), had the straps shortened about 1.5 inches, and removed the foam pads under the bust. I also had a hook-and-eye closure added under the top button on the back (it's basically invisible, but gave the back closure more stability), and had a thin, clear strap added across the back to keep the shoulder straps from sliding off (you can see it in the second picture if you look closely). It can be tucked inside the gown if you want to take it off at some point, or it would be easy to remove entirely.