Celebrity wedding veils · The Spanish revival
The Celebrity Mantilla Veil Revival: How to Get the Look
Something changed in bridal fashion over two summers. On 29 June 2024, Olivia Culpo married Christian McCaffrey at Watch Hill, Rhode Island, in a custom Dolce & Gabbana gown with a high neck, long sleeves and a great sweep of skirt, beneath around sixteen feet of sheer, lace-trimmed veil worn forward over her face. Almost exactly a year later, on 27 June 2025 in Venice, Lauren Sánchez married Jeff Bezos in a high-necked Dolce & Gabbana lace gown modelled on Sophia Loren, with a lace-finished tulle veil laid over her hair. Two of the most photographed brides of the decade chose the same house and the same silhouette, and both looks were crowned by the oldest veil style of them all: the Spanish mantilla. Culpo set the brief plainly:
“I didn't want it to exude sex in any way, shape or form” — Olivia Culpo, to Vogue, June 2024
We've made mantilla veils by hand in our Bath workshop since 2007, and we've watched this revival gather pace order by order. This page is our reading of the two weddings that brought the mantilla back: what the style actually is, why it suits a covered gown, and how to discover the same look in our own lace.
Shop ‘Ines’ →
Why the mantilla is back
Two weddings, one silhouette
- Olivia Culpo · the date
- 29 June 2024, Watch Hill, Rhode Island. A chapel ceremony she wanted to feel classic above all.
- Olivia Culpo · the gown
- Custom Dolce & Gabbana: a high neckline, long sleeves and a full skirt, covered and quiet by design.
- Olivia Culpo · the veil
- Around sixteen feet of sheer tulle finished with a fine lace trim, worn forward over the face in true mantilla style.
- Lauren Sánchez · the date
- 27 June 2025, San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice, to marry Jeff Bezos.
- Lauren Sánchez · the gown
- A Dolce & Gabbana lace mermaid gown with a high neck, sheer sleeves and 180 covered buttons, inspired by Sophia Loren in Houseboat (1958).
- Lauren Sánchez · the veil
- Tulle finished with lace, laid flat over the hair in the Loren manner.
Why did the mantilla come back? Look at the gowns. Both brides chose coverage, from high necks to lace at the wrist, and a covered gown changes what a veil has to do. Gathered styles add volume exactly where these gowns want calm. A mantilla adds none: it's a single flat layer, so it settles over the head and shoulders without disturbing the line, and its lace border draws one clean oval around the face. When the dress says modesty, the mantilla is the veil that agrees with it.
None of this is a 2024 invention; it's why Spanish brides have worn mantillas for centuries, and why the style keeps returning whenever bridal fashion swings back towards restraint. It simply took two of the most watched weddings in the world, a summer apart, to remind everyone.
The craft
What makes a mantilla
Shop ‘Catalina’ →
A true mantilla is defined by what's missing. There's no gathering at the comb: the tulle is cut in one wide oval and laid flat over the head, so the veil falls from the crown in a single unbroken layer. The lace is the point. It either covers the veil entirely or runs as a wide border around the whole edge, and because nothing is ruched or bunched it sits flat against the hair and frames the face.
The lace decides the character. A fine Chantilly with an eyelash fringe reads soft and antique; a bolder, denser motif reads formal and cathedral-ready. Our rule in the workshop is to let the veil answer the gown: echo the scale of the dress lace if there is one, or let the veil carry all the lace if the dress is clean. The border should be at its widest where it passes the face, because that is where a mantilla does its work.
It's also one of the easiest veils to wear. A mantilla is secured with a small comb or a few pins set behind the hairline, and needs no elaborate hairstyle to anchor it; smooth, simple hair is exactly right. Worn forward, the lace edge sits at the brow. Set further back, it drapes from the crown and falls behind the shoulders. Either way it goes on in a moment.
Get the look · Watch Hill, 2024
Olivia Culpo's lace-trimmed veil
View Olivia Culpo's wedding post with Vogue Weddings on Instagram
The gown was the quiet kind of couture, covered at the neckline and sleeved to the wrist, with a skirt that filled the aisle, so the veil did the talking: sixteen feet of sheer tulle (close to five metres, well beyond cathedral length) finished with a fine lace trim, worn forward over her face for the ceremony and then lifted back to fall the full length of the train.
That forward styling is the oldest mantilla gesture there is. With the veil over the face, the lace edge encircles the features completely, and against an unadorned gown the trim becomes the only ornament in the frame, which is exactly why it reads so expensive. The lesson for any bride after this look: keep the tulle sheer and the gown calm, and let one line of lace do the work.
- Spanish mantilla veil with lace edge — ‘Ines’The classic mantilla: sheer tulle, scalloped lace frame
- Mantilla veil with wide lace edge — ‘Catalina’A deeper lace border for a bolder frame
- French lace mantilla veil — ‘Clémence’Fine French lace with a soft, feathered edge
- Barely there mantilla veil — ‘Adeline’Featherweight tulle that all but disappears, full lace edge
Get the look · Venice, 2025
Lauren Sánchez's Sophia Loren veil
A year on, the reference sharpened. Sánchez described researching photographs of brides from the 1950s and stopping at one image: Sophia Loren in high lace, buttoned to the neck. From that starting point, Dolce & Gabbana built a lace mermaid gown with a high neckline, sheer sleeves and 180 covered buttons down the back — a dress reported by Vogue to have taken some 900 hours of atelier work. Over it she wore a tulle veil finished with lace, laid flat across the hair.
Where Culpo's mantilla whispered, this one carried the lace through the whole look. Pairing a lace veil with a lace gown is the most traditional reading of the style; it's how the mantilla was worn in Spain for two hundred years, and it works because the veil is flat. A gathered lace veil over a lace gown is too much, but a mantilla laid over one reads as a single continuous piece of craft.
- All over lace mantilla veil — ‘Siena’Lace across the entire veil — the full 1950s drama
- French lace mantilla veil — ‘Sofia’Silk-style tulle with a French eyelash lace edge
- Lace mantilla wedding veil — ‘Adela’A softer lace frame for understated gowns
- All mantilla veils →Every mantilla we make, in every length
View Lauren Sánchez's wedding post on Instagram
Worn by real brides
The mantilla doesn't live only on red carpets. Our Real Brides archive gathers hundreds of real weddings wearing our veils, in the photographs the brides' own photographers took. It's the best place to see what a flat lace veil actually does in a room.
See Real BridesYour questions, answered
What is a mantilla veil?
A mantilla veil is a veil in the Spanish tradition: a single layer of tulle either covered entirely in lace or finished with a wide lace border, laid flat over the head with no gathering at the comb. Because the tulle is never bunched, the lace sits flat and frames the face in a clean oval, which is the mantilla's signature. In Spain it was traditionally worn over a tall comb; the bridal mantilla today is secured with a small comb or pins and worn either forward, with the lace at the brow, or set back from the crown. You can see every mantilla we make in our mantilla veil collection.
What veil did Olivia Culpo wear at her wedding?
Olivia Culpo married Christian McCaffrey on 29 June 2024 at Watch Hill, Rhode Island, in a custom Dolce & Gabbana gown with a high neckline, long sleeves and a full skirt. Her veil was around sixteen feet of sheer tulle finished with a fine lace trim, worn forward over her face in classic mantilla styling. She told Vogue she wanted the look to feel deliberately modest rather than revealing.
What veil did Lauren Sánchez wear to marry Jeff Bezos?
Lauren Sánchez married Jeff Bezos on 27 June 2025 in Venice, wearing a high-necked Dolce & Gabbana lace mermaid gown with sheer sleeves and 180 covered buttons, inspired by Sophia Loren in the 1958 film Houseboat. Over it she wore a tulle veil finished with lace, laid flat over the hair in the mantilla manner.
How do you wear a mantilla veil?
Lay it flat; a mantilla is never gathered. Start with smooth hair, worn down or in a low style, and place the veil so the front edge sits either at the brow, with the lace framing the face, or a few centimetres behind the hairline so it drapes back from the crown. Secure it with a small comb or a few hair pins hidden under the lace. Avoid height at the crown of the hairstyle, which lifts the lace away from the face; the whole point of a mantilla is that the lace lies close and frames you.
A century of celebrity veils
The mantilla takes its place in the story
Two summers on, the Spanish mantilla is back at the centre of bridal fashion, another chapter in a hundred years of iconic veil moments. Explore our handmade mantilla veils, or trace the whole line in the most stunning celebrity wedding veils of all time.