Photos: Kate Middleton's wedding dress

Kate's wedding dress was designed by Sarah Burton at Alexander McQueen. 

By The Grand Rapids Press 

LONDON -- After months of secrecy, Kate Middleton's wedding dress got its grand reveal today as the Duchess-to-be stepped out of her town car at Westminster Abbey this morning.

Ellen Tailor, co-host of the "Gravy in the Morning" radio show on Hot-FM in Grand Rapids, was underwhelmed:

Although the dress is beautiful, I was very underwhelmed. I can't really describe what it was I was expecting but with all of the hype, I definitely thought there'd be more to the Alexander McQueen gown. Kate is sophisticated and simple so the dress fits her but this is a ROYAL wedding!

But Vogue editors gushed:

The incredibly moving moment when the new Duchess of Cambridge stepped out of her car in an Alexander McQueen dress was the fantasy everyone in fashion has been dreaming would come true.

The dress—pure and yet conveying the grandeur of its importance—is an exquisitely modern example of a personal collaboration between a bride and her designer.

Catherine has followed her own taste: a V-neck décolleté and a silhouette that stayed close to her torso, and long, delicate lace sleeves that evoked, perhaps, the wedding dress worn by Grace Kelly when she married Prince Rainier of Monaco in 1956. ...

Technically faultless in its scale and construction, the dress allowed the bride to move with ease, carrying all the weight of British history and expectation without the slightest wrinkle or hitch.

Slate.com takes it even further, suggesting Kate's choice of a demure lace gown, not even strapless could help usher in a return to modesty, a concept foreign to young girls who have "grown up in a world of hair extensions, pneumatic hooters, and stripper poles."

Might the lovely Kate, with her modest allure, her natural bosom and her quiet mystery, have the power to stem the flood of boob-jiggling hooker style which has engulfed not just fashion, but our entire culture? Could April 29, 2011 mark the beginning of a whole new era of elegant restraint?

The dress has been dissected, now for the make-up: perhaps fearing the result of an unfamiliar hand, Kate Middleton chose to DIY on her wedding day, as has been widely reported in recent weeks.