One of those designers is Amsale Aberra, more commonly known by only her first name these days. She was born in Ethiopia and eventually ended up in the United States to study commercial art. She earned a BA from the University of Massachusetts and initially settled in the area after graduating. While trying to find work that paid well, she designer her own fashions at home, not having much money to go out and buy new clothes.

The day came years later when it was time for her to get married, and just like Vera Wang, couldn't find a wedding dress that suited her tastes. With training from the Fashion Institute of Technology she designed her own wedding dress, received rave reviews for it, and decided to launch her own wedding gown business.

She found her way into the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York and, in 1985, while shopping for her own wedding dress, found that she couldn't find anything she liked and decided to design her own dress. That led to her eventually deciding to become a full time designer, starting out by launching her own wedding gown business.

Then there's designer Monique Lhuillier, who fell into the same wedding dress issues as the other two designers already mentioned. She created her wedding dress and those of her bridesmaids, which impressed many people and got her name mentioned within the fashion world. She took that notoriety and, with her husband, launched her own bridal collection and opened her first boutique in 1996.

Lhuillier, a graduate of the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising, is best known for making the wedding dresses of Britney Spears and Kevin Costner's wife, and has designer wedding gowns for many other celebrities also.

Badgley Mischka is the only name on this list that didn't have the search for a wedding dress lead to a career in designing wedding gowns. Truthfully, Badgley Mischka isn't even a person, but two people, men, named Mark Badgley and James Mischka, who are partners both in business and in their personal lives. They met at the Parsons School of Design, opened their first business in 1998, and merged into the wedding gown business first by opening a store in 1993, then having a show of their first wedding gown designs in 1997.

These designers, though not usually first on the lips of most women looking for wedding gowns, still take a back seat to no one when it comes to the fashion world, and are important enough designers in their own right to be considered as some of the best in the world.