Wedding Dress

A wedding dress is a formal gown designed for the bride. Most often white, the wedding dress comes in a variety of styles and textures. It has served as a signature ceremonial dress worn throughout the ages, and while its design has evolved, most wedding dresses maintain much of their original classic style.

From the Medieval Ages to today, the wedding dress has been designed to signify one of the most important and elegant events in a woman's life. No matter what her social status, each woman strives to wear the perfect dress on the day of her nuptials.

While we know the wedding dresses of today to be mostly white, it wasn't until Queen Victoria chose white for her dress in 1840 that it became popular. In the 1920s, veils were popular along with dresses featuring shorter fronts and longer trains. The 1940s favored a more Victorian style of dress, and more recently wedding dresses still often maintain long trains, the Victorian design and the color white. However, it is more and more common to find dresses that are shorter, sleeker and come in different shades such as eggshell, ivory and even black. An old poem describes the meaning of the different colors of wedding dresses: “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.”http://www.fromtimespast.com/wedding.htm

In the late 1800's in America, wedding dresses carried little flash for frontiers women. They preferred to choose dresses similar in fashion to their every day dresses that were a little bit prettier than normal, that could then be altered after the wedding to be used everyday. During World War II, the wedding dress seemed to fall out of favor, as many weddings took place after a very short engagement - much to short to find a new dress. After the war, dresses were used to show the individuality of the bride, and many women chose (and still do) to get one of a kind dresses just for themselves to make their wedding day even more special.