Traditional Pagan Wedding Dresses

The bride will be the one standing in the circle alongside the groom (or another bride, if this is a lesbian handfasting).  Other than that, it can sometimes be hard to determine her from the other ladies present. 

In Wicca, no book, no High Priest and Priestess, no vision from the Goddess Herself will demand that the bride wears a certain color.  While guests at Christian weddings avoid white, and those at Sikh weddings avoid red, it takes some discreet questions to dodge clashing with a Wiccan bride.

I told in Fifteen Years of Wiccan Weddings about an impromptu handfasting.  The bride was wearing what she'd had on all day.  The only addition was a garland on her head, created from whatever was quickly found in the riverside hedgerow.  She was no less handfast for that.

In all that time, I've seen every color of the rainbow.  Each bride picks her favorite hue, or that of the most gorgeous gown or robe in the shop. I've seen plenty arrive in green, as that's the color of the natural world at the height of spring.  Beltane or Summer Solstice are such common dates for handfastings!

Or they've arrived naked.  That's an option too.  It's precisely what happened in the Witch Wedding described in Stewart Farrar's What Witches Do.  This ceremony was performed indoors, out of view from passers by.  The Alexandrian coven adorned a couple of cloaks in the richest possible way, but they were worn over the naked forms of both the bride and groom.

It's way too cold to do that outdoors, at least in Britain. Traditional Wiccan bridal wear moves then to the next level.  We ask ourselves what precisely is going on here for the bride.

Womanhood didn't come with the handfasting vows.  You don't get pregnant by leaping over a broomstick (not without a little more activity anyway).  But married life is well within the preserve of the Goddess's Mother aspect.

Therein lies the clue to the most traditional colors for a Pagan wedding dress.  You could enter as the Maiden wearing white; or you could stand there as the Mother wearing red.  You could even treat this as a transitional stage and wear a combination of white and red.

The fact is that the majority of Wiccan and other Pagan wedding ceremonies occur outdoors.  They tend to be on top of hills, in the middle of stone circles, in the heart of a forest or smack bang in the center of a field. 

This is not the terrain for high heels and delicate slippers.   In any other situation, you'd be in hiking boots.  It's also not the perfect environment for gowns which sweep the floor majestically.  You'll never see a long train dragged along after a Pagan bride.  It would be horrible to remove the grass stains!

Some brides opt for lifting long skirts away from the ground with their hands, until they're in position.  Others get a shorter dress to begin with.

The trick is to test out the terrain first.  Visit with friends or the groom, so you can see what clothing would be appropriate.  There would be nothing more heart-breaking or undignified than getting trapped in foliage, because your dress couldn't make it through to the handfasting circle.

Just to reiterate a point here.  I may have spoken about red and/or white dresses (or nakedness) as the best bridal wear for a Wiccan wedding, but that's not written in stone.

It makes sense as a reference to the Bride as the personification of the Goddess. That is how she will be presented in the circle.  She's taken on the aspect of the Mother, and red is Her color.  She came into the circle as a Maiden, and white is Her color.

But so are all of the other colors.  Just because one color symbolizes each aspect of the Lady, it doesn't mean that our world is devoid of all else.  Nor does it mean that deity will frown on any other color choice.

The best Wiccan wedding dress is that which the bride wants to wear, feels comfortable wearing, looks beautiful wearing (which will be everything on a day like that) and won't sully in the terrain. The field is wide open.