Among designers of bridal clothes and the people who wear them, there is little consensus about the ideal wedding dress. Like any good relationship, the clothes worn on the day of the nuptials come in many forms, with their own particular shape, seams, and yes, wrinkles. And so the return of SSENSE Bridal is a celebration of love, labor, and looking your best—in any which way you want—on that special day.

Our refreshed Bridal category features over 100 items from 17 brands, including Aaron Esh, Anna Sui, Ashley Williams, Bode, Chopova Lowena, Molly Goddard, Nicklas Skovgaard, Shushu/Tong, Vaquera, WED, Simone Rocha, Conner Ives, Sandy Liang, Collina Strada, Tétier, Vivienne Westwood, and Cawley (Please note that the Vivienne Westwood pieces will not be available until June.) SSENSE Bridal offers dresses, tailoring, shoes, and accessories including bags, garters, jewelry, and more. It allows you to create a comprehensive bridal experience that extends beyond the ceremony to the after-party—the honeymoon even. And to model some of the pieces, we’ve gathered eight real-life couples who shared their love stories in a series of video interviews. Their stories took us to rollicking parties, tentative IG DM conversations, dating apps, ASL classes, and the well-worn kitchens where tender domestic dramas play out. Does your partner believe that you know how to wash the back of a dish? Does anyone, really?

This was a recurring point of contention in the relationship between Stan Satlin and Debra Rapoport, who have been together for 17 years. A self-described “crabby Cancerian,” Debra says she starts their fights, and in particular they fight about doing the dishes. That is, Stan’s inability to do them the way Debra likes. (“I’m a control freak,” she chimes in, in the kind of warm, craggy voice only New Yorkers of a certain age possess.) In person, the pair are clearly each other’s handrails—they’re older and they do in fact totter a bit, but as a couple they model stability. According to Debra, love is intimacy, independence, mutual respect, shared values, and joyfulness. When she showed up to a movie date with snacks in her purse, that’s when Stan knew it was the real thing.

They married at City Hall, but wearing pieces from SSENSE Bridal made the pair feel like they were having a real wedding. Like they were living out a fantasy, on some level—even if it was in a bustling Brooklyn studio on a Thursday afternoon. For designer Anna Sui, that’s how bridalwear should feel. “I think that the wedding dress should fulfill your every dream,” she says.

Revisiting a high-water mark from her legendary career, Sui designed a babydoll wedding dress for the Bridal capsule that re-creates the playful white minidress Naomi Campbell wore in Sui’s Spring/Summer 1994 runway show; it was an immediately beloved item, coveted by everyone from Sofia Coppola to Kim Gordon, who wore it in the video for Sonic Youth’s “Bull in the Heather.” “Emulating your favorite supermodel, or your favorite rock star of the ’90s, is a dream come true,” Sui says, while also acknowledging the powerful draw vintage pieces have on fashion now. The dress “captures the holy grail of ’90s vintage fashion.”

Emma Chopova and Laura Lowena, of Chopova Lowena, approached their designs for the Bridal capsule from the opposite tack: Rather than emulating a celebrity, the right wedding dress must make the wearer feel “the most them.” It came from Lowena’s personal experience as a bride. “All of the small details really mattered to me,” she says. She wanted everything to have “meaning and make me feel the most me and extra special on the day.” Chopova Lowena designed a suite of clothes and accessories, including a ruffle garter belt and “Marry Me” earrings; its pieces tell a story that takes the bride on a poolside honeymoon, with a white ruffle bikini. (Maybe a little bit of fantasy in the bikini, but who would say no to such a thing?)

Almost without exception, the couples spoke about love with regards to authenticity and transparency—the relationship as the space to be your most honest self. That sense of freedom is what makes the mundane an opportunity for closeness and romance. As Dorian Booth put it, describing moments with his wife Sandy Liang, “Love means that you can be doing something very simple, like sitting on the couch, holding hands, and it just feels really special.”

Of course, love isn’t just sentimental. Sometimes it means puking after being told “I love you,” like Annika White did when Carl Knight confessed his feelings. Zhiyu Lu and Quinn Herbert are excited about the early stages of their romance—but that doesn’t mean Z has deleted Grindr from his phone. Technically Angela Manfredonia was Jamil Haque’s student when he first started having feelings for her. Nico Heller can’t use a towel after showering and his fiancée Naomi Otsu gets annoyed over the wet bathroom every single time. Tonoia Wade is head over heels about Alljahni Mack—to the point of getting tongue-tied—but she still calls her out when Alljahni chews with her mouth open.

But in every couple, they can’t get enough of each other—through the good and the bad. Salvador Villafana and VanDawn Williams met at a party and their first date was meant to be a couple hours or so hanging out in Soho, but the conversation flowed so well they both cleared the rest of their days to spend more time with one another. Four years later, this is still their ideal form of romance: time together, no matter the activity. “No matter what it is,” VanDawn repeats emphatically. It’s just that simple.

Watch all the video interviews with the couples and find your soulmate—sartorially speaking at least—in the new SSENSE Bridal capsule. Tag us if you say: