In keeping with our tradition of breaking with traditions, it’s time we talked about the white wedding dress! A beautiful, and often lavishly expensive, white wedding gown is one of those wedding traditions that many brides have high expectations for. Where did we get the idea that all brides have to wear white?
Certainly the white wedding dress is not the standard in all cultures. In many cultures, the traditional wedding dress looks nothing like what many people think of as the stereotypical white wedding gown. What does it mean to wear white anyway? In North America certainly, the white wedding dress comes with its fair share of baggage and tired ideas of bridal “purity.” Just how ancient are these ideas anyway, and where did they come from?
The truth is, our entire conception of the white wedding gown finds its way into our cultural imagination thanks to one singular bride; Queen Victoria! On February the 10th, 1840 Queen Victoria wore a cream coloured (read off-white!) satin and lace wedding gown and it caught on. That’s pretty much the whole story! So there you have it, this ancient and apparently immutable wedding tradition only goes back as far as Queen Victoria, and the dress wasn’t even white!
Victoria was not the first royal to be wed in white (or off-white as it turns out), but she is credited with popularizing the white wedding dress. What did brides in England wear before Queen Victoria? Well as it turn out, they mostly did not wear white! In the decades after Queen Victoria’s wedding however, it became fashionable for well heeled English brides to wear white. Shortly after Victoria’s wedding, the American publication “Godey’s Lady’s Book” would incorrectly, and brazenly proclaim of the white wedding dress: “Custom has decided, from the earliest ages, that white is the most fitting hue, whatever may be the material. It is an emblem of the purity and innocence of girlhood…” Boy that’s a lot of baggage to hang on one dress!
So what does it all mean? Well we think it means you can wear whatever you want on your wedding day without feelings of burden or obligation. If you want to wear the white wedding dress of your dreams, then go for it. It’s your day! On the other hand if you want to wear a Chanel pantsuit then you should do it. Again it’s your day!
And for couples for whom the idea of a white wedding dress feels like a financial, gender, or cultural burden…you can just leave all that baggage behind you. Your wedding day is all about you! Read that part again… your wedding day is all about you; beautiful, unique, and individual you! So feel free to hang onto the traditions that feel important to you, and feel free to let go of any traditions that don’t speak to you, confident in the knowledge that those traditions may not be all that old or ancient anyway! You can break a tradition or two on your wedding day, just like Queen Victoria did!
