Your wedding dress is supposed to be something you treasure for life and that you love wearing on your big day. But for many women, those dresses turn into unpleasant straightjackets that cause itchy, red skin. Jokes aside about allergic reactions to marriage, these rashes are very annoying, but you can take care of them. Here's a look at what might be causing them and how you can take care of those causes.

Beading, Lace, and Anti-Chafing Cream

Some wedding dresses are smooth and silky, but others have a lot of embellishments like beading and lace. These can irritate your skin if parts of you continually rub against parts of the dress. You may want to look into having the parts that contact your skin covered with a patch of satin that is dyed to match the color of your dress. For example, if there is beading that is contacting the inside of your biceps on a strapless dress, see if strips of satin can be added inconspicuously. If the beading or other embellishment is along the edge of the dress, like along the neckline, you could try an anti-chafing cream, like those used by professional athletes.

Current Cosmetics

Sometimes the cosmetics and cleansers you use can make your skin a little more sensitive to fabrics and yet other cosmetics. Try switching everything you use to products made for super-sensitive skin until after your wedding. Look for products that don't have ingredients like sodium laureth sulfates. Also try to find products that help reduce redness and skin blotches.

Weight Gain

No one likes to think of this possibility, but you may have gained weight between your initial fitting and your wedding. Talk to the store from which you bought the dress to see if they can make adjustments to some of the seams, or find a tailor who can work some magic. If you still have a ways to go before the wedding, you could always try to lose the weight. Of course, you have to be sure you actually did gain weight first -- you're already under a lot of pressure to look a certain way, and you don't want to add more pressure on top of that.

Clothing Preservatives

Many clothes are treated with preservatives when they come from the manufacturer, and these preservatives can be irritating to skin -- that's why you have to wash new clothes before you wear them. It's entirely possible that your dress needs to be cleaned again to remove more of the preservatives.

Talk to wedding dress stores about solutions they usually use to soothe irritated skin before a wedding. Many of these stores stock alternative dresses in different styles, and you may find features on some that the store could improvise on your dress to make the fabric easier to wear. Click for more info.