At a recent Kleinfeld Bridal sample sale, more than 200 mostly young women lined up for a chance to scour the racks for the perfect wedding dress — or in some cases, a second perfect wedding dress.

A handbag designer, Kevser Kaleli, 31, who is having one gown custom made for a September wedding, came to the sample sale to look for another, less formal dress to change into after she takes her vows. “My gown is not going to be conducive to dancing,” she said, as she waited her turn in Kleinfeld’s lobby.

In an era of DVD “save the date” cards and $10,000 wedding cakes, New York brides are finding another way to make their special day distinctive, if expensive: two white dresses on their wedding day. Modest gowns with extravagant constructions work for the ceremony, but shorter, flirtier designs are often what’s wanted for the reception and after-party.

“It adds another over-the-top element to the wedding,” a 28-year-old magazine editor who wore two dresses at her October wedding, Christina Gould, said. “It’s yet another little surprise, another personal touch.”

When she walked down the aisle recently at St. Bartholomew’s Church on Park Avenue, Ms. Gould wore a strapless, white Angel Sanchez wedding gown with a mermaid hem and a heavy silk train that pooled at her heels. She purchased a white, fur cape to cover her shoulders.

At the reception, which followed the ceremony at the Rainbow Room in Midtown, she surprised guests when she came in wearing an ivory lace Empire waist minidress by ABS —showing off a $1,000 pair of slate blue d’Orsay pumps that had been obscured by the longer gown.

“It was so much easier to move around in,” Ms. Gould said of the second, shorter dress, which she also wore to her wedding afterparty at the W Hotel in Midtown. “Plus, I didn’t have the stress of worrying that guests were stepping all over my train.”

An owner of Designer Loft, a bridal shop in Manhattan’s garment district, Paulette Cleghorn, said in recent years she’s seen an influx of women “with an enlightened sense of fashion” picking out two wedding dresses.

“They want to look a little more parent-appropriate for the ceremony, and they feel more comfortable showing off their bodies at the reception,” she said. “A dress covered in thousands of Swarovski crystals may not be appropriate for the ceremony, but in a candlelit reception hall makes for the most exquisite bride ever.”

At her September 2005 wedding at the Palace Hotel on Madison Avenue, New Yorker Lourdes Cohen, now 25, wore two Monique Lhuillier dresses.

When she took her vows, she wore a short-sleeve, full-length white lace gown with a gold sash. Later, for the reception and afterparty, also held at the Palace, she changed into a high-collar, lowback white minidress. “It was still white, it was still lace, and I still was obviously the bride, but I was able to dance the night away,” Mrs. Cohen, a non-practicing lawyer, said.

A New York party and event planner with Fête, Jung Lee, said as more wedding receptions go beyond the usual four hours, brides don’t want to be confined to a long, heavy wedding gown.

“Typically, they want to have their first dance in that gown, and then they may want to get into something a little sexier,” Ms. Lee said.

Since dresses can be expensive at Designer Loft, they range in price from about $2,500 to more than $100,000 — not everyone can afford two of them. Several designers make “convertible” dresses, which allow brides to sport two looks with one dress.

R.S. Couture, for example, makes a gown that allows brides to remove several layers of fabric to show off a shorter, sportier dress. It retails at Kleinfeld for about $4,000.

But for some brides, wearing two wedding dresses is about honoring their family heritage. It’s common for American women of Asian, Indian, and Arab descent to opt to wear a Western-style white gown, and a colorful Eastern-style design on their wedding day.

A lawyer in Manhattan, Boji Wong, 32, wore a white, v-neck gown by Le Spose de Gio to her February wedding at Capitale in Lower Manhattan. Toward the end of the reception, Ms. Wong, who is Chinese-American, changed into a hot-pink satin dress with a Mandarin collar, a high slit, and frog buttons. “It’s an Asian tradition,” she said. “Also, why wouldn’t you wear two dress, instead of one, if you can?”

Taking a breather from a shopping excursion at Kleinfeld this week, bride-to-be Bonnie Turcott of Greenwich, Conn., said she wasn’t keen on the idea of wearing two dresses to her November wedding. “I can’t even imagine that,” Ms. Turcott, 26, said.

She sighed, then added: “I can’t even find one.”