The Colour of Wedding Gowns...

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by Kay Burton...

When recreating a wedding gown for use in a miniature dolls house, bridal shop or church scene, for example, it is worth bearing in mind the colour. Is it right for the era and theme you are trying to depict?

White has long been accepted as the traditional colour of the wedding dress, but wedding gowns were not always white. When Queen Victoria married Albert of Saxe-Coburg, her cousin, in 1840 her gown had more influence on future weddings than any other. The official wedding portrait photograph was widely published, and many brides opted for a similar dress in honour of the Queen's choice.   Though brides continued to wed in gowns of different colours after the royal wedding, white was now set as the preferred colour for weddings and have continued ever since.  A quote in the Victorian “Godey’s Lady’s Book” of 1849, stated “Custom has decided, that white is the most fitting hue, whatever may be the material. It is an emblem of the purity and innocence of girlhood, and the unsullied heart she now yields to the chosen one.”  But before white dresses became virtually universal from around the mid 19th century, colour was important.    A well known rhyme ran...

Married in green, ashamed to be seen

Married in grey, will go far away

Married in red, wish yourself dead

Married in blue, always be true

Married in yellow, ashamed of your fellow

Married in black, wish yourself back

Married in pink, of you he’ll think

Married in white, sure to go right

Brides who wore blue believed their husbands would always be true to them, so even if their gown itself was not blue, they would be sure to wear something blue about their person. This is another tradition that has survived to this day. 

Pink was another popular colour, considered most suitable for a May wedding. It was flattering to most complexions and associated with girlhood. The deeper shade of red was definitely taboo by Victorian times, with its reference to scarlet women and hussies.

The bright shade of yellow has had varied popularity. In the eighteenth century it was “the” fashionable colour for a while, and many girls chose it, but before that time it had been associated with heathens and non Christians and was considered an unholy shade to wear in church!

Above left: Pre Raphaelite Bride

Above right: Country Bride

Amongst the unpopular shades was green. This was considered the fairies colour, and it was bad luck to call the attention of the little folk to oneself during a time of change that a wedding brings.Going back to the days of hand woven and homemade garments, any natural shade of brown or beige was considered very rustic and only worn by country girls. Colour was sometimes introduced by holding a small bouquet of wild flowers.  

For brides of the lower classes, an extremely common shade of wedding gown was grey, because it was such a useful colour to re-use as Sunday best, being considered highly respectable. By Victorian times it became associated with girls in domestic service, as they would often be provided with a new grey dress each year by their employer. Its deeper shade of black was of course banned, with its permanent association with death and mourning. In fact it was considered such a bad omen that in some places even the guests were not allowed to wear it and a recent widow would change her mourning for a red gown for the day, in polite respect to the bride.  

We have now reached a new century, and no doubt the wedding gown will carry on changing in fabric type and altering in form; colour is again being used much more. There is equally no doubt that the wedding gown will remain with us. Since the civil wedding laws were relaxed in the 1990s, allowing marriages to be conducted almost anywhere, wedding fashion continues to evolve separately from the general vogue. People have felt freer to allow full rein for their imaginations, and some wedding parties are not so much in "best" dress as fancy dress, as themed and fantasy costumes are the order of the day. Some weddings are indeed becoming much more colourful again as in days gone by.

 
 Kay Burton 

www.kayburton.co.uk

Below Left: Queen Victoria

Below Right: Regency Wedding