A couple planning their nuptials often has a vision of their wedding day and what it will look like long before they actually begin their planning. Whether they opt for the traditional, storybook wedding, a more understated, muted elegance or a lavish, unconventional or unusual event, their vision often includes the bride in white. Evoking tradition and hinting at themes of purity, the bride clad-in-white is nothing new and is a frequent holdover in even the most unorthodox wedding plans. As the trend toward all-white weddings gains traction, the white-on-white wedding theme invites questions as to where the white wedding dress tradition comes from and what it means, at least in western wedding culture.
In fact, the “white wedding” concept is derived from the white color of wedding dresses popularized during the Victorian era in Great Britain. Queen Victoria set the trend by wearing a white lace gown when she married Prince Albert in 1840. Before this time, formal, ornate and colorful dresses were the typical wedding fashion. Since becoming popular in Victoria’s time, when a white dress would have been a show of wealth and excess, the white wedding dress has grown to become both iconic and the de facto standard, today symbolizing purity and, more loosely, “new beginnings”. From this custom has grown the entire concept of a “white wedding”, which roughly equates to the entire wedding event as is customarily celebrated in Western Europe and North America.
Today, taking the white-wedding idea a step further and into more literal territory, couples are electing to create whole wedding affairs in a total-white color scheme. As non-traditional as the all-white wedding sounds, taking a look again at Queen Victoria’s trendsetting wedding, she not only chose to wear white but dressed her bridesmaids in white as well, setting an historical precedent for white-themed wedding parties.
The all-white wedding design may be a difficult portrait to paint in a couple’s mind at first, given how white has come to be so closely associated with the bride and the visual impression she makes. The historical context, however, introduces tradition to the idea – and opens the door to creative inspiration.
