Wedding Dresses and Gowns
The wedding dress or gown is a highlight of the marriage ceremony, something not to be seen by the groom before the big day. Very often it's the most expensive piece of clothing the bride will ever buy - and it's only worn once!
The White Wedding Dress
We usually think of the bridal gown as a billowing creation of purest white, the symbolism behind this choice of dress colour being obvious: purity However the white wedding dress is a relatively recent tradition.
Victoria
White dresses were originally uncommon for the simple reason that they were difficult to keep clean. In years gone by the wedding dress wasn't worn just once - few people could afford that. Instead it was worn again and again, which meant it had to be cleaned. A white dress was simply too much work unless you were rich enough to either wear it only once or have plenty of servants to wash it.
Queen Victoria changed all that. When she married Prince Albert in 1840 she wore a white gown - hard to imagine given the usual pictures we see of her in
mourning black. Anything that the Queen did was instantly copied by the rest of the country and beyond, so getting married in white became the vogue,
despite the cost or work of keeping it clean.
As prices fell over the years, a white wedding dress which was worn only once became affordable to more people. White remains the most popular colour wedding dress bought today, however it's far from the only colour. Black and red are usually considered to have negative connotations but other than that almost anything goes.