Fashion Plate - Wedding White, 1851

Le Moniteur de la Mode, April, 1851

While some brides had been wearing white for their weddings since the Neoclassical period, the practice intensified when Queen Victoria married Albert of Saxe-Coburg in 1840. She firmly established the tradition by wearing a white satin dress trimmed with Honiton lace. On her head she wore a veil of Honiton lace attached to a wreath made from orange blossoms, a symbol of fertility.

Subsequently, fashion plates featured white for bridal ensembles. This French fashion plate illustrates a demure bride in a dress with a ruffled skirt. The bride’s maid offers a necklace. She also has ruffles on her skirt, a detail that visually widened the silhouette in the years before the cage crinoline.

References

Richard Cavendish, “Queen Victoria’s Wedding,” History Today 65, 2 (February 2015) https://www.historytoday.com/archive/months-past/queen-victoria’s-wedding (accessed June 11, 2019).

Charles L. Mo, To Have and to Hold: 135 Years of Wedding Fashions. Charlotte, NC: Mint Museum of Art, 2000.