Vanessa Fatton, 34, said she dislikes wearing dresses in her daily life, and so "a wedding dress was never a consideration for me." Something more her style? Ms. Fatton, a sales manager at Apparatus in New York, chose a Proenza Schouler peplum top and 3.1 Phillip Lim brand cuffed trousers for her New York ceremony in September 2014.
Photo Vanessa Fatton chose a Proenza Schouler peplum top and 3.1 Phillip Lim brand cuffed trousers. Credit The Posternaks
Katharine Polk, the designer and creative director of Houghton, also wanted to cater to often-overlooked brides by providing an array of options.
"People are getting married in their 40s, their 50s, their 60s," she said. "I don't think anyone in those age brackets wants to put on a sweetheart-neckline mermaid gown." She has offered pants — along with shorts, rompers, gowns and skirt and top separates — since the brand started in 2012. The Selena romper is $2,900 and the Pearl pants are $1,150.
Kate Siegel , director of public relations and marketing at Houghton, added, "I find that Australian and European brides are a lot more fashion forward and much more willing and excited to do a pants or romper look for their ceremony." Most American brides, she said, seem to save those styles for the reception.
Alexis Jackson, 33, a hospitality professional, and her husband, Ben Jackson, 38, a chef, planned a barbecue for their October 2015 wedding. "I wanted something I could be very mobile in," Mrs. Jackson said of her wedding outfit. "And if I ruined it by accidentally spilling pig grease on it, it wouldn't be the end of the world."
Photo Alexis Jackson picked a shirtdress with kimono belt and wide-leg pants by the New York City designer Caron Callahan. Credit Kristian Jackson
Mrs. Jackson picked a shirtdress with kimono belt and wide-leg pants by the New York City designer Caron Callahan, who is her friend. Ms. Callahan, who designs ready-to-wear fashions, said that about 10 brides have emailed her, wanting to custom order her Morgan strapless dress in ivory silk broadcloth and the wide-leg pants that go with it from her spring and summer 2015 collection for their weddings. So far, she has fulfilled three orders for the occasions, charging around $700 for the dress and $500 for the pants. (The ready-to-wear versions retail for $399 and $330.)
Jenna Weiss-Berman, 33, the director of audio at Buzzfeed, wore a Bindle & Keep bespoke blue suit, while her wife, Kira Garcia, 39, a wr iter, also skipped the dress for their wedding last August. Ms. Garcia's sister, the designer Eva Garcia, created a custom green-and-white-striped silk jumpsuit out of fabric the bride found in a mid-Manhattan fabric store.
In September 2014, Shannon Reese, 46, a registered nurse, wore tailor-made black pants from the luxury men's wear brand Bijan in Los Angeles. Her wife, Alexandra Pakzad, 28, a lawyer, is a daughter of the designer Bijan Pakzad.
Kat Hanratty, 43, a vice president for design of OshKosh B'Gosh, said pants were "a natural choice" for her marriage to her wife. She also chose black pants, wearing Saint Laurent wax-coated jeans. "I haven't worn a dress since high school," she said. "And even then I hated it."
Photo Jenna Weiss-Berman, left, wore a Bindle & Keep bespoke blue suit, while her wife, Kira Garcia, 39, also skipped the dress for their wedding. Credit Liz Clayman
A smattering of high-profile brides has also exchanged trains for trousers. Amal Clooney wore a Stella McCartney white two-piece bespoke suit (with black detail, and a matching floppy hat) for her 10-minute legal civil ceremony to actor George Clooney in Venice. (But she did opt for an Oscar de la Renta gown for the more elaborate wedding ceremony the same weekend.) Olivia Palermo, a socialite, wed the model Johannes Huebl in white Carolina Herrera shorts with a tulle skirt overlay. And Solange Knowles, singer and sister of Beyoncé, arrived at her ceremony in New Orleans in a Stéphane Rolland jumpsuit.
"Wedding dresses, like every other garment in our wardrobes, reflect social and cultural change," explained Edwina Ehrman, the Curator of Textiles and Fashion at Victoria and Albert Museum in L ondon.
She suggested that the informality of pants and their traditionally gendered heritage made them perhaps "too assertive or too unisex" a choice for brides, reasoning that their recent popularity "may be no more than a reflection of a wider fashion trend and the current interest in clothes that blur traditional gender divisions."
As marriage is transformed alongside cultural reconsideration of gender, sexuality, adulthood and identity, it is conceivable that traditional wedding trappings, like dresses, might fall away, according to Rebecca Traister, the author of "All the Single Ladies: Unmarried Women and the Rise of an Independent Nation."
Photo Shannon Reese wore tailor-made black pants from the luxury men's wear brand Bijan. Credit Niv Ocean Shank
Only 20 percent of 18- to 29-year-old Americans are currently married, compared with 60 percent of that same age group in 1960, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of United States census data in 2010. A Population Reference Bureau analysis that year found that 46 percent of adults younger than 34 have never married.
"That more people are living independent of marriage for more years changes the nature of the institution," Ms. Traister said. "It's no longer this institution that organizes power and responsibility along gendered lines."
Still, according to the Wedding Report, a research company that tracks industry trends based on government data and surveys of couples, the average American wedding in 2015 cost $26,645, based on data from 8,010 survey samples. The average dress was $1,226. That indicates that weddings are still important to people, even if modes of dressing for them are changing.
"I hate that just because something is bridal, the price triples," said Ms. Suzann, the Nashville designer. "We charge exactly what we would charge if we offered these pieces in our normal collection, based on the quality of the silk and the amount of fabric used," she said, adding that she creates each piece to be worn after the wedding day, too.
Photo Mary Pat Lee chose J.Crew floral silk pants for her bridal party. Credit Mary Pat Lee
That flexibility seems to be true regardless of price. Mrs. Hunt found her suit and pants on sale at Bergdorf Goodman and Barneys New York for less than $500. Ms. Hanratty spent about $5,500 at Saint Laurent's SoHo store on her shirt, jacket, pants and hi-top sneakers. Both women have worn those pieces again since their weddings.
Mary Pat Lee, 29, a sales manager from Honolulu, decided to let her bridesmaids in on the lasting nature of pants and eased the strain on their wallets. She chose J.Crew floral silk pants for her bridal party, knowing that dresses would likely be unworn after her ceremony in Honolulu last August. And they were on sale for less than $60.
When it comes to the media messages from the w edding industry — currently worth $60 billion in the United States, according to an IBISWorld report — Ms. Traister said, "the selling of the big dress as the pinnacle achievement of female adulthood is only intensified as it becomes clear that there are so many other achievements of female adulthood."
"It's not accidental that the fetishization of 'say yes to the dress' comes at the same time that the other things women are saying 'yes' to are things like advanced degrees and salaries that are competitive to men's and running for the presidency," she added.
"There are other things," besides wedding bells and dream dresses, Ms. Traister said, "that are becoming signal achievements within women's lives.� �
Lili Garfinkel, 66, a national commercial real estate consultant based in New York, wore white palazzo pants for her second marriage. She and her husband even abstained from buying each other wedding bands for their ceremony, at New York city hall in February. Instead, he borrowed one while Ms. Garfinkel slipped on three stackable rings she already owned.
Unlike at her first wedding in the 1980s, where "everything was within conventional parameters," Ms. Garfinkel felt both sartorially and ceremonially unconstrained.
This time, she said, "I didn't feel like I had to yield to convention."
Read More: Randy Fenoli of 'Say Yes to the Dress' Is a Bride's Therapist
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Unbreakable Bonds in the Folds of a Wedding Dress
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