Picture the bride, giddy at the array of silk and satin gowns in the bridal boutique. Now, see the bride gazing starry-eyed at the reflection of herself wearing the to-die-for strapless gown she simply must have. Watch as she adjusts the three-way mirror to check her rear view. Hmmm. The way the waistline dips to a point below her waist makes her look thinner. That’s good. But, wait... that cute butterfly tattoo, the one she likes to show off in tank tops and halters — is it out of place with the satin and lace ? Poor bride. Planning a wedding isn’t simple, and now she has yet another decision to make. What to do, what to do ? Choose a less revealing dress ? Get the dress and try to camouflage the tattoo ? Let the ink show ? Strapless has reigned as the top style in wedding dresses for several years. At the same time, the number of people sporting tattoos has steadily increased. The most recent (2003 ) Harris Poll about tattoos revealed that 16 percent of all American adults have at least one tattoo, with 36 percent of people ages 25-29 and 28 percent of adults ages 30-39 admitting to wearing ink somewhere on their bodies.
“If they’re in college, there is a good chance they have a tattoo,” says Lois Ames of the Briar Patch, a bridal shop in Fayetteville. “It really is amazing how many younger girls have tattoos.” “I’ve never seen so many tattoos,” says Judy Gordon, owner of Ashley’s Bridal Gowns in Sherwood and a more than 20-year veteran of the wedding dress business. “I’ve been doing this for years and years, and it’s really become more prevalent. Now just about all the girls have one.” As the number of people with tattoos has risen, the dilemma of the tattooed bride has become more common. Depending on whom you ask, brides with tattoos fall into two, or three, camps: “Almost every bride doesn’t want them to show on their wedding day,” says Gordon. “They’re not afraid to show them,” says Marie Lee, owner of Marie’s Bridal Boutique in Farmington. “Matter of fact, I’ve got one bride who’s covered in tattoos. She picked her dress up and it is a strapless, lace-up-the-back two-piece style... and she’s covered down her neck, down her back and her arms.” “ Probably half show them and half don’t, ” says wedding photographer Gloria Townsend of Brides and Blooms Photography in Alexander.
There you have it — a nonconsensus, backed by a random and completely unscientific survey of bridal store owners and workers, wedding photographers and tattooed brides. The survey reveals that, yes, more women have tattoos in places visible if wearing a strapless dress. Yes, some of those women want their tattoos covered on their wedding day. Yes, some want theirs to show.
“I certainly wanted mine to show,” says Dennis McElvey, who was married two years ago. “I love my body art.... I specifically chose a dress to show off my tattoos.” McElvey’s classic wedding dress featured a fitted bodice with spaghetti straps that revealed a crown tattoo on her upper back, a cherub on one shoulder blade, a crown on her left upper arm, a self-designed family crest emblazoned with the slogan “Be just and fear not” on her upper right arm, and a red-pink scroll design around one wrist. Five other tattoos remained out of sight.
McElvey says she got her first tat, the cherub on her back, when she was 27. The decision to be inked wasn’t hasty or rash. “I knew I wanted one, and I waited until I found the one.” Since then, she has added nine more.
Her husband, Erin, although ink-free himself, is cool with her tattoos, she says. And no one attending her “very traditional” wedding and reception at the Woman’s City Club in Little Rock blinked an eye about her body art, at least not that she noticed. Most were aware of her tattoos beforehand.
“Everyone at my wedding knows me, and I don’t hide my body art,” says 39-year-old McElvey. “I don’t consider myself the typical tattooed girl. I’m probably one of the older ones with tattoos.” The majority of the tattooed brides are in their early to mid-20 s, those in the bridal business say. Of those, many aren’t as comfortable as McElvey about displaying their tattoos.
Some brides worry their body art may offend a wedding guest. Sometimes a bride wants to conceal a tattoo because a family member such as Grandma doesn’t know she has it. Most often, however, the bride looks at herself in the mirror and decides tattoos and bridal gowns just don’t go together, Gordon says. “They think it doesn’t go along with the whole look. Even if they’re not wearing a traditional gown, they just don’t think it makes them look bridal,” she says of tattoos. “Even though they think it was appropriate when they got it, it’s not for the wedding.” Gordon offers another reason for concealing body art: “They don’t want to look at their pictures in the future and see those tattoos.” Not so with McElvey. Her tattoos figure prominently in the bridal portraits taken by photographer Bob Ocken of Ocken Photography. Taking the tattoo theme and running with it, Ocken shot some of McElvey’s bridal photos at Seventh Street Tattoos in Little Rock.
Ocken says McElvey has been the only one of his clients whose tattoos have been a key component of her photos. He can think of no other clients with visible tattoos.
“I don’t see them much,” Ocken says, then laughs. “But I’m not looking. They might have them on their shoulder or back, but they’ll be covered. And some may have tattoos on their backs or at the belt line and that won’t show in a wedding gown.” Townsend says she has noticed that more of the brides she photographs these days have tattoos on their shoulders or back. Sometimes she asks the brides if they’d like a tattoo edited out of a photo before it’s printed.
Digital photography and computer technology make this possible.
Tara Gladden, a Little Rock resident and one of Townsend’s clients, preferred that her tattoos remain in the picture. Gladden, 21, got married in November, wearing a strapless ivory wedding gown. Of her seven tattoos, the dress revealed only a cross tattoo between her shoulder blades and small tattoos on each foot (when movement such as walking caused the hem of her dress to rise ).
“I know that it’s my generation, really. Almost everyone I know has at least one tattoo or is planning to get one,” Gladden says. “In years past, people covered them up, but now it’s becoming more acceptable and part of our generation’s culture and the way we define ourselves.” Her family wasn’t on board with the public display of the back tattoo at her wedding — at first, she says. “But I guess they became more accepting and then they thought it was pretty, so it didn’t need to be covered up.”
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