Click for larger version (PNG); click for PDF version. Click here for the list of dolls.

You may or may not have seen this, but there’s a line of wedding dresses based on the various Disney princesses. You can probably guess that I’ve got a soft spot for Ariel and the gang, and I’m certainly fond of my pretty princess gowns, but it seems to me like something was left out… The fact is, it’s the villains who deserve the most spectacular wedding dresses! If you really think about it, theirs ought to be even more wonderful than any ever made for your standard issue simpering, vacuously beautiful princess. I mean, wouldn’t that be part of the joy of being a villain? You don’t have to worry about looking modest or maidenly, frugality isn’t even in your vocabulary, and if anyone out there gives you static about your wedding colors or where you have your registry, well, darling, that is simply the kind of situation that pet dragons, leftover poisoned fruit or comic-relief henchmen were created for.

So, let us pretend for a moment that Snow White never quite made it to the little cottage in the woods, and there were no red-hot shoes or other such fates for the Evil Queen. (Did you know that in the Disney version she had a name? I didn’t, but it’s Queen Grimhilde, according to Wikipedia. There’s your trivia for the day.) After her husband’s unfortunate death, she found her own Prince Charming, handsome, lacking in empathy and appropriately weak-willed, and threw herself a wedding good enough for the fairest of them all. I like to think that eight sweet little village seamstresses went blind embroidering the trim on her dress, and that the lace underskirt — which you will note, isn’t even visible, although I assure you it’s fantastic — is stained a kind of rusty red with blood from the fingers of artisans working themselves to the bone to get it done before the big day. (Sure, it could have been washed, but why would she? She likes it better this way.)

Now, I don’t really think you could package this up and sell it to a modern audience. Why? They couldn’t handle all this fierce in one dress, that’s why. For most humans, it’s probably better to stick with an imitation of Cinderella or Belle.

I’m not entirely sure that this is small enough to print on one page – so if you print it and it doesn’t work, let me know and I will fuss with it. (It’s almost 11 PM, so I’m rapidly running out of patience…) Also, I think the collar would be tough to cut out; I think you would have to cut between the doll’s shoulders and neck and her hair, and then you would cut a line straight through the middle of the collar, so the collar would slip behind her neck. Or cut off the collar entirely, I won’t hold it against you. It won’t seem as evil, though – some sacrifices must be made to achieve the proper look, you know.