The Bride Wore Black—and Red and Blue

by Catherine Castle

 

The recent hulabaloo over the royal wedding of American actress Meghan Markle and Prince Harry got me thinking about wedding dresses. Actually, it just continued my months long obsession with weddings. I finished a wedding themed book late last year and have spent quite a bit of time at the beginning of 2018 writing about weddings. So, I decided to talk about wedding dresses today. Specifically, the history of the dresses many girls dream about for years before they ever walk down the aisle.

 Most of today’s brides chose traditional white for their wedding gowns, although some like Reese Witherspoon, and other celebrities, are trading the traditional white for blushing pink.

 

You might think the recent celebrity trend of a non-white dress is a new thing, but it’s not. Brides historically chose colors other than white for their wedding dresses.




Catherine II of Russia's Wedding Dress

White wasn’t a practical color for wedding dresses before the 1900s as white fabrics were not only expensive, but hard to keep clean. Women didn’t have automatic washing machines or dry cleaners back then. Dresses for the average woman needed to be sturdy and serviceable. Most women, with exception of the very wealthy, could not afford a dress that would be worn once and then put away. So, they were married in their Sunday best, and sometimes that best dress was a black dress. Famous author Laura Ingalls Wilder, who married in 1885, wore a black cashmere dress, spurred in part by the need to push the wedding date up, and because it was a dress she and her mother were already sewing. Even if she hadn’t been working on a black dress, chances are her wedding dress would be made from fabric of a darker color as darker colored dresses were more practical. They didn’t show dirt or wear as much as lighter colors.




Woman's two-piece black wedding dress

 

Superstition often played a part in the color choice. If you had a variety in your wardrobe, you might look to this handy rhyme to make sure you chose a lucky color.

Married in Red, you will wish yourself dead. Married in Yellow, ashamed of your fellow. Married in Green, ashamed to be seen. Married in Pink, your spirit will sink. (Some sources disagree with pink, stating ‘Married in Pink, of you he will think.) Married in blue, you’ll always be true. Married in Grey, you will go far away. Married in Black, you will wish yourself back.

Additionally, brown was not a favorite choice, because “Married in brown, you’ll never live in town.” A statement that meant to say their husbands would never rise in business or acquire riches that would enable the family to move on up. Purple was also out because it was considered a mourning color, favored by widows from their second year of bereavement on. The dresses often had patterns in them, too.

The white wedding dress we consider traditional first appeared when Anne of Brittany married Louis XII of France in 1499. But it wasn’t until Queen Victoria married her cousin Prince Albert, in 1840, that the white bridal dress became fashionable.

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert

When Queen Victoria appeared in a white dress accented with Honiton lace, made in the small village of Beer, and wearing a wreath of orange blossoms, instead of a crown, she caused quite a stir. Royalty and aristocracy normally married wearing expensive fabrics, richly embroidered in gold and dripping in jewels—clothes that were meant to show off one’s wealth. By contrast, Queen Victoria’s dress seemed frugal. The news of the Queen’s dress spread and a decade later, the American woman’s magazine Godey’s Lady’s Book, declared white as a symbol of purity and virtue. Wealthy brides, who could afford the expensive white materials, picked up the trend.

But for the less affluent brides, the standard of marrying in your Sunday best continued until after WWII, when rations no longer played a part in everyday life and the middle class began to copy the style of the affluent. My mother, who married shortly after the war ended, was married in a Sunday best dress like thousands of brides before her.

Today, in an effort to create the perfect wedding, brides spend hundreds, or even thousands, of dollars on that perfect dress that they will wear once and then store away.

Still, the lure of that perfect dress, and the ultimate wedding, is strong. Years ago, when my daughter was small, she and I watched Princess Diana marry Prince Charles. My daughter gushed over the poufy dress Diana wore, talking about how beautiful the princess was.



Princess Diana and Prince Charles

I wasn’t as enamored of the dress as my daughter, but I loved watching the wedding.

When it was my daughter’s turn to marry, she chose a classic wedding dress style and a long cathedral veil, like Diana's, onto which I stitched daisy trim taken from my wedding dress. Something old attached to something new.  

And when Kate Middleton wed Prince William, we watched that wedding (not together though). The gown she wore, which some thought was inspired by Grace Kelly’s dress, is now an iconic wedding gown.



Kate Middleton and Prince William

And just a few weeks ago my daughter and I both watched Meghan Markle wed Prince Harry. As soon as my daughter knew I’d seen a recap of the wedding she called to talk about “the dress.” The wedding dress that has become the pinnacle of the bride’s focus and the fulfillment of a little girl’s dream.

As I scrolled through wedding gown pictures to find suitable ones for this post, it occurred to me that the search for the perfect wedding gown sometimes overwhelms the story of the romance that triggered the wedding. When it comes right down to it, it’s not the gown that counts. History has proved that over and over with the millions of women who have wed sucessfully without the haute couture gowns and the expensive wedding trappings. In the end, it’s the love between a husband and wife that really matters.  That tops a piece of silk or taffeta worn, only once, any time.

What about you? What kind of wedding gown did you wear?

Don’t forget to leave a comment to get your name in the drawing for the Stained Glass Mandalas coloring book by Vickie McDonough! Winner will be announced in the June 11^th edition of the Weekly Windup

About the Author

Multi-award-winning author Catherine Castle loves writing, reading, traveling, singing, theatre, and quilting. She’s a passionate gardener whose garden won a “Best Hillside Garden” award from the local gardening club. She writes sweet and inspirational romances. You can find her books The Nun and the Narc, A Groom for Mama, Bidding on the Bouquet  and Trying Out for Love boxed set on Amazon.