Nikki Bella chose wedding dress 30 minutes before walking down the aisle

May 2024 · 3 minute read

Nikki Bella picked her wedding dress just half an hour before saying “I do” to husband Artem Chigvintsev in August.

“People are going to think I’m crazy,” the “Total Bellas” alum told Brides.

“I didn’t choose my ceremony dress until 30 minutes before I walked down the aisle,” the former reality star, 38, continued. “My poor mother!”

The last-minute look was one of four total outfits Bella selected for her special day; they’ll be revealed next year in a four-part E! special called “Nikki Says I Do.”

“The cool thing about being a bride is the fashion journey you get to go on,” the star said.

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“This is your time to shine and be a star. Sometimes I feel like some people are scared to express themselves in fashion, so they hold back in real life. When it’s your wedding, it’s time to be fearless.”

In fact, one of Bella’s four ensembles was bought during her previous engagement to John Cena; the couple broke up in 2018.

“I had two beautiful dresses that I loved, and they were going to be for a different marriage, but they were my dream and I love them. So, I brought them out to see if I could make them work,” she told the publication.

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“What brides will realize when they start searching for the dress is that what you wear is about you as a woman. It has nothing to do with the person that you’re marrying or the people that are attending. It has everything to do with what you’ve envisioned for yourself and how you feel … I bought those dresses for me.”

As for what to expect from Bella’s other bridal styles? “Something I always wanted to bring into my bridal outfits was elegance,” she said.

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“My Nana has a wall of family wedding photos in her house, and I would always go and look at my great grandmothers’ wedding dresses. There was just something so iconic and timeless about their gowns. I always knew that, on my wedding day, I wanted to wear something that would leave my grandkids staring at pictures of me thinking that they’d want to wear it at any age, too.”

Bella and Chigvintsev got engaged in November 2019, less than one year after they began dating.

The couple delayed their wedding plans as they conceived and welcomed their now-2-year-old son, Matteo.

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Bella told her Instagram followers in August that she and the dancer had wed in Paris.

“We said I DO,” she wrote at the time. “We both can’t stop smiling I never want this feeling to end. I will love you forever and ever Mr. Chigvintsev.”

In a post of his own, the groom gushed, “What a magical time.”

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