This Is Why We Wear White On Our Wedding Day
White wedding dresses? Not so traditional after all. [Photo: Rex]
Think bride, and whether it’s a slinky 1920′s style column gown or a lace affair with a 10-foot train, you’ll probably picture a white dress. Because the hue is a wedding tradition as old as time, right?
No, actually.
Finding the perfect white, or at a push: ivory or cream dress is top of most bride’s to-do lists, even if it’s not usually their colour and they’re prone to spilling their champagne.
But it’s actually a relatively recent phenomenon to see white as the go-to colour for your bridal gown. Until around 170 years ago, red was the most popular colour for wedding dresses.
In fact, Mary Queen of Scots caused uproar when she wore white on her wedding day and was branded inappropriate.
It wasn’t until Queen Elizabeth wore white on her wedding day that it became popular. In 1840 she wore a white dress, orange flower crown and veil and inspired a legion of brides to follow suit.
A lot like how the Duchess of Cambridge did wonders for the lace wedding dress, then?
A few years after Elizabeth kick-started the trend we were all duped into thinking white was the norm, with Godey’s Lady Book claiming that “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, and the unsullied heart she now yields to the chosen one,” it proclaimed - and word spread.
In short: the white wedding dress is simply a trend that’s stuck. So feel free to wear whatever colour you want brides to be. You could even be traditional and go for red.
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