The models of the eighties and nineties spent their whole lives walking down runways in other people's wedding dresses - and when it came to their own wedding, most chose something entirely opposite to the opulence they were selling. No cathedral veils, no tonnes of lace. Instead - a personal story, minimalism and sometimes a dose of rebellion.

Elle Macpherson is perhaps the most extreme example. For her 1986 wedding to photographer Gilles Bensimon, she wore a fitted design by Azzedine Alaia that resembled a swimsuit from the top, with draped muslin and a wrapping veil inspired by Mary Magdalene. After the divorce she burned the dress - a move she later admitted to regretting. Some decisions feel liberating in the moment and painful for years.

Kate Moss chose a champagne-coloured bohemian design by John Galliano for her 2011 wedding. Galliano admitted that this very dress was his professional rehabilitation during a difficult stretch of his career - proof that a single piece of fabric sometimes carries more weight than it appears. Claudia Schiffer went the opposite way: an elegant Valentino with long sleeves, four kinds of lace and a four-metre train for her 2002 wedding, a dress she still keeps framed at home as a keepsake.

The line continues with Ines de la Fressange, who married in 1990 in a minimal short white dress by Yves Saint Laurent, with a beige blazer and a hat - Parisian chic in its purest form. Cindy Crawford chose simple lace with thin straps by Galliano for her beach wedding in the Bahamas in 1998, while Isabeli Fontana went to the other extreme with a sheer dress adorned with over 10,000 crystals for her Maldives wedding. Different women, different decades, the same lesson - real style is not in how much the dress costs, but in how honestly it says who you are on the day everyone is looking at you.