Most brides wear a white wedding gown on their wedding day. Today, the white gown is often accentuated with splashes of colour, comes in varying shades of white to cream and often has intricate beading to lend glamour and dazzle to the wedding gown. Yet, despite all the additional embellishments of lace and pearls or various shades of white, the wedding gown is still usually essentially a white and grand gown.
Have you ever thought about what the wedding gown symbolises and why it is white?
Tradition of the Wedding Gown
It is interesting to know that the wedding gown did not originally start off white. Instead, women in traditional times usually wore brightly coloured gowns on their wedding day. Read on for the tradition of the wedding gown below.
The wealthy wanted to look princess-like on their big day and hence copied the rich and grand ballgowns the royalty wore so they could feel like a queen for a day. In those times, only the wealthy could afford rich colours and rich materials and they went all out to flaunt their wealth by having the brightest colours and most luxurious fabrics for their wedding gowns. Even the length of the train and amount of material in the wedding gown was an indication of the family’s wealth and social standing. The less wealthy tried to copy the wedding gown ideas wherever they could but probably made do with less material and cheaper fabrics.
If it is now considered expensive to make a wedding gown that you will only ever wear once, imagine how costly and extravagant it must have seemed in the olden times!
History Of The White Wedding Gown
Wedding gowns were not white until Queen Victoria’s wedding to Albert Saxe-Coburg in 1840 set the precedent for white wedding gowns. Queen Victoria wore a white dress with lace which the public loved and adopted as their concept of a wedding gown. Historically, white fabric was usually associated with the wealthy for who else but the wealthy could keep their dresses so spotlessly clean and only ever wear it once!
Over time, people have come to associate the white of the wedding gown as a symbol of purity and innocence of the bride.
In Godey’s Lady’s Book, 1849, this statement was printed: “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.” (source)
Today, this interesting custom continues as brides continue to choose white for their wedding gowns. It is a powerful symbol of a girl’s transition into womanhood and a new life with the man she has chosen. It has become the stuff of little girl’s dreams to one day wear that magical white wedding gown and be transformed to a princess, even if it is just for one day.
So the next time you try on a wedding gown, remember this little piece of history that has dated back over 200 years! 
Perhaps this little poem might lend some insight to why wedding gowns are white!
“Married in white, you will have chosen all right. Married in grey , you will go far away. Married in black, you will wish yourself back. Married in red, you’ll wish yourself dead. Married in blue, you will always be true. Married in pearl, you’ll live in a whirl. Married in green, ashamed to be seen, Married in yellow, ashamed of the fellow. Married in brown, you’ll live out of town. Married in pink, your spirits will sink.” (source)
Photos by The Knot
