Wedding Gowns

Queen Victorias Wedding Gown

When talking about who invented the white wedding dress fashion or trend usually we think that it was Queen Victoria, but she was not the first bride to ever wear a white wedding gown, although she wore one herself for her wedding.  Three centuries before Louis XII of France’s wife Anne of Brittany is supposed to be the first bride to wear a white dress.




The wedding portrait of the queen in the dress circled the whole world and everyone tried to copy her, but in those days it was hared to bleach the materials out to a perfect white so they were usually ivory or cream.  Before this trend royalties often wore silver dresses which can be considered similar but the most important part for the brides of a royal birth was the price of the materials, not the colors.  They usually chose a darker color dress because it was easier to keep them clean and also to make, they were also able to wear the gown again for a different occasion. By being more practical women usually opted for the darker version of the wedding gowns, but Queen Victoria managed to make the white dresses extremely popular.

She had chosen to wear a white dress in order to incorporate the white lace that she had owned. The Honiton lace from which the queen’s veil was made was an English lace. The original design of the wedding gown was made using Brussels lace, which is considered to have a more professional look, but the queen insisted that her dress should be made of finest Honiton lace.  There always have been a big demand for this beautiful lace, but after the wedding the demand for it grew even more.  The cost of the lace alone was more then £1,000 and more then two hundred people worked for 8 months to finish making the lace which was four yards long.  Manufacturer of the lace was so keen on making the design unique that after the material was completed al the designs were destroyed.

The shoulder-bearing dress was made out of pure white satin which was manufactures in Spitalfields being trimmed with orange flower blossoms. It was considered to simple for that time, the custom being that the more complex and expensive the dress is, the more valuable and exquisite it is, they usually opted for robes that were trimmed in furs and encrusted with rare jewels. The difference being that Queen Victoria married for love, a concept which was completely unknown in the circle of royal families, so it made everything more simple, natural. In fact she had such a revolutionary personality that she was the one to propose to him.

She did not wear a tiara, but instead had chosen to wear an armlet with the motto of the Order of the Garter (“Honi soit qui mal y pense”, or translated in English “Shame be to him who thinks evil of it”) and also wore the star of the Order.

Queen Victoria’s bridesmaid were also dressed all in white with bouquets of white roses along with the gold brooch designed and received from Prince Albert representing an eagle made out of pearls and turquoises (for true love), diamonds (for eternity) and rubies (for passion), having a beautiful effect.