(CNN) -- By all accounts, it was a storybook wedding. 

Eighty of the bride and groom's closest friends and family watched as the beaming couple exchanged rings under a bridge on New York City's shoreline in Astoria Park. 

Except these weren't your run-of-the-mill fairytale nuptials. In Joanna Scutts' storybook, the bride dazzled her husband-to-be in a gold-sequined, boatneck sheath on their wedding day. 

"I knew I didn't want a white dress, as it was really important to me to feel like myself at the wedding -- and I never wear white," she said. "I'm a pale-skinned redhead, and any shade of white makes me look dead." 

Scutts is one of many brides choosing to walk down the aisle in a nontraditional colorful dress. 

In this week's People Magazine, Jessica Biel reveals the custom pink Giambattista Valli Haute Couture gown that she wore when she tied the knot with Justin Timberlake in southern Italy on October 19. 

Biel certainly isn't the first celebrity to color outside the bridal lines: Reese Witherspoon graced the cover of People Magazine in April 2011 wearing a blush Monique Lhuillier gown for her second marriage; Sarah Jessica Parker famously wore black on her wedding day with Matthew Broderick; and Sofia Coppola married Thomas Mars in August 2011 in a violet Azzedine AlaÃ¯a dress. 

"Brides today want their wedding to be a reflection of their personality -- they're no longer embracing tradition for tradition's sake," said Nicole Sewall, the managing director of BHLDN, Anthropologie's bridal and special occasion brand. "We've seen a lot of brides throw the wedding rules, as we know them, out." 
What color did she choose?
gold-sequined, boatneck sheath