Believe it or not, Wedding Dresses were not always white. That tradition really got it’s start in Victorian England with the marriage of Queen Victoria to her cousin Albert in 1840. By marrying in a white wedding dress Queen Victoria influenced the custom of choosing white because, white was the “emblem of an unsullied heart and the purity and innocence of girlhood.”

By the 1890′s the idea that wedding dresses had to be white was re-enforced by publications such as the ‘Ladies Home Journal’ who wrote; “from times immemorial the bride’s gown has been white”. Which of course was complete nonsense but the idea a wearing white on their wedding day was embraced by thousands of blushing brides! The arrival of the department store made it possible for almost every woman to realize her dream of being married in a “new” wedding dress.

Leave it to the frontier brides of the Wild, Wild West to be practical and choose a wedding dress that, with a few alterations, could be worn again after the wedding day. (After all, the new bride would have to chop wood, pluck chickens and maybe shoot an Indian or two and a white dress would be so impractical

With the outbreak of WWI styles became simpler, and reflected the changing role of women in society with hems getting shorter and disposing of those horrible, tightly laced corsets! A white knee length wedding dress worn with a long train was introduced by Coco Chanel further cementing the ‘tradition’ of white as the universal color of the wedding dresses.

Throughout WWII, women calculated it their obligation to renounce the conventional wedding. a quantity of brides were engaged for merely a few weeks or even days previous to the wedding got locate, not leaving many time to retrieve a wedding dress. Wedding dresses were frequently rented or borrowed for the ritual. If both the bride and groom were in the military they were matrimonial in their personal dress which would have been unlikely a generation past!

The riches following the war made it likely for the grand fairy story weddings to once more be a realism and brides soared down the aisle on their wedding day in white silk and lace wedding dresses inspired by Grace Kelly’s opulent marriage ceremony to the Prince of Monaco.