Was mourning, became marriage! Why is it customary to marry in white today

Earlier in Europe, white was considered the color of grief. This is why noble ladies who observed mourning were often called white ladies. In such conditions, not every fashionista was ready to try on a white dress for a wedding.

The girls got married just in the best dress they had. Monarchs preferred red outfits and decorated them lavishly with embroidery, lace, precious stones, etc.

Queen Victoria managed to dispel the association of mourning around this color forever. A true pioneer of her time, she decided to go against the established norms and wear a snow-white outfit on her wedding day.

Victoria wasn’t the first to wear white to a wedding. Thus, in 1499, Anne of Brittany, then Duchess of Brittany and Queen of France, married a second time in white dress, shocking the people and her fiancé, Louis XII of Valois. The fact is that her former husband, Charles VIII, had died a year earlier, and Anna was still crying for him. That’s why she chose white mourning for her second marriage.

Almost 200 years later, in 1613, Elizabeth Stuart, an Anglo-Scottish princess, also decided to shock the public with a snow-white wedding dress embroidered with silver lace and encrusted with diamonds and pearls. The bridesmaids also wore similar dresses.

But back to Victoria. For her wedding to Prince Albert, the girl chose a cream-colored silk satin dress with a narrow waist, full skirt and Honiton lace trim. When ordering an outfit, she barely guessed that in a few decades this style would become a classic of European bridal fashion.

Why did Victoria manage to bring white into fashion? First, the queen was the pioneer of the time. Second, an unplanned public relations campaign was undertaken around the wedding dress. The fact is that in the 19th century it was not customary to get rid of the wedding dress immediately after the ceremony, as we do now, so the queen showed herself in public several times in her dress wedding, but without a veil and in a less solemn atmosphere. Partly because of this, partly because of the influence of the Queen herself in the fashion world, the popularity of white as a wedding color has grown. In addition, it had another rather utilitarian, but useful property: it looked advantageous in black-and-white photographs of the time.

A little later, Hollywood stars helped to consolidate the special status of a white wedding dress. Thus, in 1956, Grace Kelly posed on the arm of her husband Prince Rainier III of Monaco in a magnificent white dress made of silk, lace, tulle and pearl thread.

In 1981, millions of spectators attended the wedding ceremony of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer, dressed in a magnificent dress from the hands of David and Elizabeth Emanuel – ivory silk taffeta with a train of almost eight meters.

One cannot help but remember Audrey Hepburn and her luxurious Balmain midi dress, in which she married Mel Ferrer.

Today, getting married in white is a tradition. Many girls, not wanting to follow the rules, on the contrary, dress in non-standard bright dresses in order to look original in wedding photos. However, most brides still prefer the classics.

Another interesting point: the tradition of closing couture shows with wedding looks. It was born around the middle of the 20th century, when wealthy customers began to often turn to their favorite designers for exclusive wedding dresses, and they, in turn, began to include them in spring-summer collections. Some of these dresses have even become iconic.

Text: Daria Montenegro

Photo: Getty Images