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The 21st-century bride

Tradition is the heart of a wedding, but a little innovation can add to the thrill.

If weddings are about the future, why do many bridal gowns seem stuck in the past? Tradition calls for sweetheart necklines, puffy sleeves, and a beaded band for a headpiece. But modern times call for more modern attire. That doesn't mean you have to look like Judy Jetson. Instead, forgo the image of a cake-top princess for something more assertive: Say Princess Leia, the heroine of the Rebel Alliance, wearing a draping hood. Or a gown with floaty floor-length sleeves that reach far into the millennium. Or even one that will have your guests asking themselves a modified version of the grocery store question: Strapless or plastic? Look closely to see clear over-the-shoulder rigging, a futuristic approach to security.

Ring in the new

Solitaires. Emerald cuts. Tiffany settings.

It used to be as easy - and boring - as that. But rings today have become expressive pieces of design with very contemporary twists. You can even buy a ring with German engineering.

"People have really gotten away from the classic diamond with two baguettes," says George Pelz, an owner of Pageo Jewelers in Newton Centre. "We hardly sell any of those anymore." Instead, Pelz says, consumers are drawn to architectural concepts by designers such as Whitney Boin, whose "post" ring lets a diamond drop through a bezeled circle, secured by two posts welded to a platinum band. It looks risky, but it's very secure, the jeweler insists.

"That's the ring that really put him on the map," Pelz says of the designer. With a 1-carat diamond, the ring costs about $10,000.

Niessing is a German jewelry design house with a bold philosophy: A ring, especially one worn every day, should say more than just that its wearer is off the market. Niessing's "tension" rings, a style patented in 1981, have soared in popularity recently. The ring's diamond looks precarious as it virtually floats, squeezed between ends of the band with nothing but air at the bottom point of the stone.

Susan Monk, manager of Quadrum in The Mall at Chestnut Hill, says the diamond is held in place by 50 pounds of pressure, while traditional prongs exert as little as 15 pounds of pressure. "They guarantee the setting," Monk says, adding that the stone needs to be well cut. Prices start at about $2,500.

Another Niessing design is made of platinum covered in a delicate skin of gold, which will change with wear - like a marriage. And that's the point.

Even Tiffany & Co. has updated its classic engagement ring, streamlining the look into the Lucida, which the company calls "reminiscent and modern," a marriage of the old and the new. Cathy Hagan, vice president of Tiffany & Co. at Copley Place, says the ring is for those who want something that will endure without being boring.

Cartier says customers are curious about its two recently introduced modern engagement rings. "They're asking for something a little different more often than not, " says Christopher Shepherd, manager of the Cartier store on Newbury Street.

In one of the new rings, the diamond appears to float in a four-pronged setting, because the basket is set into the band rather than soldered on top of it. "If you look at it from the side, it's architecturally a beautiful ring," Shepherd says. The second new design, the Declaration ring, has a tension setting. Shepherd says the ring "is being gobbled up."ufdot

Layered looks

When Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones married in November, the bride - according to her wedding planner - wanted the day to be "dramatic but intimate." Intimate? With 350 guests and a price tag in the millions? Hardly. Dramatic? Yes. The wedding cake was 10 tiers high - towering 6 feet tall - and covered in flowers that resembled the bridal party's bouquets.

Today, says Suzi Parks, who makes bridal gowns and wedding cakes for her Boston company Wedding Angels, a cake isn't simply a cake. It has to go with something - the theme of the wedding, the architecture of the location, even the trim on the bridal gown. "I often take details from the dress and put them onto the cake," says Parks. "People don't go, `Oh look! It's just like her dress.' But a few people notice the small details."

It's all in the details, says Ursula Argyropoulos of Ursula Art of the Cake in Boston. Several times recently, couples have asked Argyropoulos to reproduce their pets on the cake. Using gum paste, which was popular in Europe two centuries ago and can be shaped like Play-Doh, Argyropoulos can fashion a dog, for instance. She works from photographs and from what the couple tell her about their pet. A shy dog, then, might be hiding somewhere on the cake; a troublemaker might be nibbling something he shouldn't.

Argyropoulos often works with very bright colors to match the flowers in a centerpiece or to go with another theme.

Parks works with fondant, the shiny satinlike icing found on classic French petits fours. "I deal with it like I do fabric," she says. "I drape it a lot."

Her cakes can look like a tablecloth whose skirt hugs the floor, with intricate trim on the bottom, but somehow that trim - and the look of the cake - is connected to the wedding. She'll match cakes to a gilded old mansion, add vines and ivy for outdoor weddings, make something grand for a reception in a cathedral-ceilinged ballroom.

Lately, copying a trend that began in Manhattan (where else?), brides have asked Argyropoulos to make individual wedding cakes for the guests. "They're very, very labor-intensive," says the baker. The bottom layer is about 2 inches in diameter, the top tier about 1 inches. "It's like a petit four in a slightly larger serving," Argyropoulos says. The cost? "It's for brides with money to burn. Each one is $25."