How to Wear Those Barely There Wedding Dresses

When it comes to a wedding dress, how little is too much?

On the bridal catwalks for fall 2016, transparency wound its way from necklines and sleeves to the sides, fronts and backs of gowns. Some dresses were almost entirely transparent. Those choosing to wear one of these more risqué designs will have to plan carefully.

This injection of sexy on the catwalks may reflect today’s more open-minded approach to the institution of marriage.

Naeem Khan said he started designing dresses last season that appear to bare more flesh in response to requests from brides for designs that showcased their figures rather than their innocence.

His new collection had gowns of embroidery covering sheer, skin-colored fabric. “It’s a bride’s biggest red-carpet moment,” he said, “and you should be looking like a billion dollars.”

Around half the brides who buy the designer Pnina Tornai’s dramatic gowns with illusion bodices ask for opaque nude-colored panels of fabric to be inserted into the bodice, according to Terry Hall, fashion director at Kleinfeld Bridal in New York. This gives them the same sleek look without showing as much skin, Mr. Hall said. And in doing so, it helps appease more tradition-minded parents and other relatives.

Similarly, Don O’Neill, whose 1920s-opium-den-inspired collection for Theia was one of the season’s most provocative shows, suggests that if the bride doesn’t want to bare all, she can add a nude organza layer, a silk georgette lining or a bodysuit under his more transparent dresses.

As they prepare for their glamour moment, many brides appear to be taking their cues directly from the red carpet.

Although Kristin DeJohn, 32, said she was “going for glamorous right off the bat” — having been inspired by the sleek chic of Jennifer Lopez’s red-carpet style — she ended up with two dresses for her marriage in September last year.

For the couple’s Greek Orthodox ceremony in Greenlawn, N.Y., she wore a more traditional gown with flowing fabric by J. Mendel. But for the Catholic marriage blessing ceremony two days later, at Oheka Castle in Huntington, N.Y., she wore a heavily beaded dress by the Israeli designer Lihi Hod. She liked its plunging back, with matching low-cut front, sheer panels and semitransparent arms. She said it felt natural to wear the racier number for the second ceremony.

Sarah Dihmes, 32, tried on almost 100 wedding dresses before her September 2014 wedding on the Amalfi Coast in Italy. “I wanted something sexy to show off my curves,” she said. “It feels very conservative to be all in white.”

She admired the way Israeli designers incorporated nude-colored fabric into their designs, and fell in love with a strapless Mira Zwillinger dress, which fell to an inch above her knees and had nude fabric peeking out from heavy lace and flowers.

But in the end, she decided she wanted something more conventional for the ceremony after all. “I wasn’t sure if I wanted that sexy of a dress in a picture that would last forever, that my grandchildren would be seeing,” she said. So she wore that Zwillinger dress to the rehearsal dinner and a less revealing Ines Di Santo gown with a mermaid cut for the wedding.

Another option for adding modesty to a dress with transparent sections is donning a long veil for the ceremony and removing it for the reception, said Julie Sabatino from the Stylish Bride, a wedding fashion stylist in New York. In a nod to the popularity of bridal dresses with detachable skirts, she also suggested having an overskirt in tulle or silk organza made as an addition to dresses dominated by transparency.

Nevertheless, even in the face of this zest for skin-hugging, barely there fabrics, full voluminous skirts were seen in collections by Marchesa and Naeem Khan.

“They can exist alongside each other,” said Mark Ingram of Mark Ingram Atelier. “Now you have the option to be the angel or the devil.”