When Queen Victoria donned a white satin dress for her 1840 wedding, it was viewed with some surprise. Wedding dresses could be any color, but white was neither fashionable nor common.
In truth, she'd picked it because she had a lovely 'deep flounce of Honiton lace' that she wanted to show off. That was white, so her dress was white; thus she sparked a 'custom' in fundamentally imitation brides, which has so far lasted nearly two centuries.
Royal wedding columnists had to find something to say about Victoria's white dress, and 'it matches her lace' wasn't going to cut it.
Without much in the way of meaning at all, they nicked the symbolic attributes of a truly ancient wedding dress color - blue. Thus pulling off a sleight of hand about 'purity' and 'piety' still erroneously repeated today.
Break free of Victorian misinformation! Return to your roots, wear an age-old hue that even your pre-19th century forebears would recognize as customary. Buy a blue wedding dress for your traditional walk down the aisle.
Comments
Yes, it does. But it's not actually blue, is it?
I'd not heard the virgin-a-long-time-ago one for white. I'm trying to work out now how that one works. Virgin, until respectably not being a virgin anymore. Or a wry comment on modern mores? *smirk*
And now you know that Queen Victoria started all of that, just matching up some lace and not leaving the journalists with anything to say! Just shows how such commentators make stuff up to fill column inches.
How beautiful. I thought white weddings gowns meant the bride was a virgin (although a long time ago). I never knew Amazon had blue wedding gowns.
Neither did she. And that worked out just fine, didn't it? Erm... ok, perhaps some calming of the pace to a reasonable level. :)
My trouble is, when in the names of all that's holy (and quite a lot that's not) am I ever going to find time to write this all? I'd need to go at LEL's pace. And I don't have staff to wash, iron, cook and clean for me either.
My work here is done. *smirk*
Jo, you are a pickle! You just keep feeding me article ideas! I've already had one from you that I'm mulling on.
WordChazer - I'd love to read that article! Do it! Do it!
VioletteRose - In my religion too (Paganism), red is the most common colour for a bridal dress, followed by white. They match the colours of the Maiden and Mother. From what I can see, blue was the traditional colour for Christian brides. But they've all been rendered Pagan since Victoria. LOL
I agree that the blue dresses here look gorgeous.
Hi WordChazer, that sounds great! I am always interested to learn about these.