BACK IN BLACK For her wedding to Andrew Kaplan, left, Laura Dembo bought a wedding dress she’d actually wear again. And again.

You’ve heard the wedding horror stories: $50,000 tabs paid for on credit, bridezillas who pen manifestos full of hair and makeup rules for their bridesmaids, and couples whose intense prewedding arguments destine them for divorce court. We blame it all on self-inflicted pressure to pull off the perfect wedding, and it usually starts with the same old traditions everyone feels compelled to follow. Buck that! Here are some customs that could use a modern makeover.

Tired tradition the white wedding dress
Virgins over 25, raise your hands. (Yeah, that’s what we thought.) Yet without hesitation, brides-to-be spend at least $1,000 on a white gown they’ll never wear again. For 36-year-old Laura Dembo, that felt silly, so she chose a black knee-length cocktail dress for her wedding two years ago. “I felt like if I was going to spend an exorbitant amount of money on a dress, I wanted to be able to wear it again.” And she has—five times. “It was definitely a splurge,” Dembo says of the $1,900 frock she found at Blake (212 W Chicago Ave, 312-202-0047), a pricey boutique she normally wouldn’t even bother entering. But there’s no buyer’s remorse: Dembo loves that she has a go-to dress hanging in her closet for black-tie parties and happily says, “It’s fun to tell people I’m wearing my wedding dress.” (One literal footnote: Forgoing white meant she could splurge on black open-toe Prada heels she’s worn again, too.)

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