Wearing white on your wedding day seems to have been the tradition for many years but the styles that we see as traditional today tend to be dresses based on Victorian styles. Brides through the ages haven’t always chosen the traditional route. Searching through a Richmond wedding dress shop will offer you an array of choice and you may like to let history help you make your selection.
White Weddings
Wearing white to get married only became popular after Queen Victoria married Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg in 1840. Prior to that, it was acceptable to get married in most colours and indeed ordinary brides usually married in their Sunday best. ‘Ordinary’ in this case means a woman from the working or middle classes. Practicality was one of the prime considerations and women chose clothes that they could wear again - white just wasn’t practical for this reason.
When visiting your Richmond wedding dress shop, bear in mind that in earlier times different colours were seen as appropriate. The early Celts chose the colour red as their wedding colour, as it symbolised fertility, and early Christians preferred blue as it was seen as the symbol of purity and truth (and was often used in portrayals of the Virgin Mary). The colour of choice for Scandinavian weddings was black. However the aristocracy and royalty wore white long before Queen Victoria. Mary Queen of Scots wore a white dress at her wedding to Francis Dauphin of France in 1559, not because it was traditional but because it was her favourite colour. This was a controversial choice as white was the colour of mourning for French Queens. Other royal brides who have chosen white include Henry IV’s daughter Princess Phillippa, who in 1406 chose a tunic with a white silk cloak trimmed with ermine and velvet. For the rest of us, white didn’t become popular until after the wedding of Queen Victoria when it became the tradition for brides of all classes. Nowadays white doesn’t necessarily mean pure white and in the Richmond wedding dress shop you choose to visit you will have a choice of many wonderful shades.
Which Style?
Style choice often followed the fashion trends that were current at the time. Social position has always played a huge part in a bride’s choice of dress; it gave her family the chance to display their wealth. Full advantage was taken of this with expensive fabrics and jewelled embroidery. In the 1920s the trend was to wear dresses that were shorter at the front than the back with cloche style head-dresses.
The following of current fashions continued until the late 1940s, when it became fashionable to choose dresses reminiscent of the Victorian era. This has largely continued until the present day. In fact, we are far more traditional now than our 1920s ancestors were. In the Regency period, wedding dresses had a simple and elegant silhouette; a beautiful example of a wedding gown from this period is Princess Charlotte’s silver lace apron-style gown, which is on display at the London Museum.
When you visit a Richmond wedding dress shop to choose your gown for your special day, remember that whether you choose to follow tradition or current trends, and whether you choose to wear white or your favourite colour, you will be following in the footsteps of the many brides who have gone before you who made choices that reflected their own style and character.
White Weddings
Wearing white to get married only became popular after Queen Victoria married Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg in 1840. Prior to that, it was acceptable to get married in most colours and indeed ordinary brides usually married in their Sunday best. ‘Ordinary’ in this case means a woman from the working or middle classes. Practicality was one of the prime considerations and women chose clothes that they could wear again - white just wasn’t practical for this reason.
When visiting your Richmond wedding dress shop, bear in mind that in earlier times different colours were seen as appropriate. The early Celts chose the colour red as their wedding colour, as it symbolised fertility, and early Christians preferred blue as it was seen as the symbol of purity and truth (and was often used in portrayals of the Virgin Mary). The colour of choice for Scandinavian weddings was black. However the aristocracy and royalty wore white long before Queen Victoria. Mary Queen of Scots wore a white dress at her wedding to Francis Dauphin of France in 1559, not because it was traditional but because it was her favourite colour. This was a controversial choice as white was the colour of mourning for French Queens. Other royal brides who have chosen white include Henry IV’s daughter Princess Phillippa, who in 1406 chose a tunic with a white silk cloak trimmed with ermine and velvet. For the rest of us, white didn’t become popular until after the wedding of Queen Victoria when it became the tradition for brides of all classes. Nowadays white doesn’t necessarily mean pure white and in the Richmond wedding dress shop you choose to visit you will have a choice of many wonderful shades.
Which Style?
Style choice often followed the fashion trends that were current at the time. Social position has always played a huge part in a bride’s choice of dress; it gave her family the chance to display their wealth. Full advantage was taken of this with expensive fabrics and jewelled embroidery. In the 1920s the trend was to wear dresses that were shorter at the front than the back with cloche style head-dresses.
The following of current fashions continued until the late 1940s, when it became fashionable to choose dresses reminiscent of the Victorian era. This has largely continued until the present day. In fact, we are far more traditional now than our 1920s ancestors were. In the Regency period, wedding dresses had a simple and elegant silhouette; a beautiful example of a wedding gown from this period is Princess Charlotte’s silver lace apron-style gown, which is on display at the London Museum.
When you visit a Richmond wedding dress shop to choose your gown for your special day, remember that whether you choose to follow tradition or current trends, and whether you choose to wear white or your favourite colour, you will be following in the footsteps of the many brides who have gone before you who made choices that reflected their own style and character.
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