When most women of today are looking for wedding gowns, they start by thinking of Vera Wang gowns. However, there are many other designers out there whose dresses have graced the bodies of some of the most famous women of our time. Oddly enough, two of Vera Wang’s top competitors had the same issues she did when they were ready to get married, and leads into how they got into the wedding gown business to begin with.

Let’s take some time to profile some of her competitors.

Amsale Aberra was born in Ethiopia and left after graduating college to study commercial art in the United States. When war broke out and she realized she couldn’t go home, she went on to get an undergraduate degree at the University of Massachusetts. Always fans of fashion, while she was trying to survive on her own she would design her own fashions at home.

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. Known as "forever modern", she tries to design wedding dresses with a timeless feel, one that, she believes, would look as modern 20 years later as it does at the time. She is known for making youthful styles with many traditional touches.

Her best known wedding dress ironically was for a fake wedding, as Alyson Hannigan wore it in the movie American Wedding. Trista Rehn, known better as The Bachelorette, also wore one of her wedding dresses.

Monique Lhuillier had the same wedding dress issues when she went looking for something to wear in 1994. She not only designed her own wedding dress, but the dresses for her bridal party, and the dresses created such a stir that she and her husband decided to launch her first bridal collection in 1996, and opening their first boutique in Beverly Hills the same year.

Monque was born in the Phillipines to a wealthy family, and eventually found herself in Los Angeles, attending the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising. After her own wedding, there was great buzz generated through high society wedding because of her wedding designs for both brides and bridesmaids.

However, it wasn’t until 2004, when Britney Spears wore one of her designs for her marriage to Kevin Federline, that she became a big name for celebrities around the world. Kevin Costner’s wife Christine wore one of her dresses for their wedding, which was also in 2004. Other stars who have worn her wedding gowns include Ali Landry and Emilie de Ravin.

Badgley Mischka may be the oddest in the group because not only is this not a female, but it’s actually two men, Mark Badgley and James Mischka, who are also partners in real life. They met while attending the Parsons School of Design, and in 1988 decided to start their own company.

Possibly because they’re men, their style is actually known for being sexier than the norm, which generated a lot of buzz. They got into the wedding business in 1993, and launched their first line of wedding gowns in 1997 through Saks Fifth Avenue.

Badgley Mischka’s most famous wedding dress was the one worn by Jada Pinkett Smith for her wedding, but other stars have worn their dresses as well, including Tori Spelling, Kristin Davis, and Carmen Electra.

When it comes to top wedding dress designers in the world, the designers named here can stand next to anyone when it comes to lavish wedding fashions.