bride’s dress

BRIDE’S DRESS

There is a wedding tradition that, I believe, is the most unanimous of all. Whether among traditional or funky, white wedding dress (or in its off white variations), absolute win in brides preference.

The curious, however, is that unlike other symbologies that were still born in antiquity, the tradition of white dress is more recent. Who explains this is the History of Fashion researcher, Míriam Costa Manso, who is also a professor of Fashion Design at the Federal University of Goiás (UFG). According to her, there was a time when the bride did not have to worry about the color, but about the beauty and the luxury of the dress. This was because the marriage was the fruit of commercial arrangements and, therefore, should show to the society that the families had possessions. Red and black, for example, were colors widely used by the brides of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.

And how did we get to the white wedding dress? The researcher says there is no consensus on the origin of this tradition: there are records indicating that Queen Mary Stuart of Scotland was the first to choose this color, still in the sixteenth century. She would have made this choice to honor the Guise family, of her mother, whose family crest was white. Another account, however, points out that it was the seventeenth-century Queen Marie de Medici of France who caused a stir at Court when she was the first woman to marry wearing a white dress – her gown still had gold details and square neckline. This was a daring novelty at the time, because the current religious aesthetics indicated the use of dark colors and dresses closed up to the neck. Even the painter Michelangelo spoke about the choice made by the girl: according to him, the choice was related to the purity of the girl, who married at the age of fourteen.

But the most popular story is that it was Queen Victoria of England, already in the nineteenth century, who started the white trend. In an interview with the Terra portal, Miriam states that she was one of the first nobles to marry for love and this may have turned white into symbol of romanticism.

In fact, Queen Victoria has become a great reference when it comes to marriage. In the book “History of Marriage and Love,” author Alan MacFarlane says many of the traditions that still exist in these celebrations are due to it! At her ceremony, for example, Victoria dismissed the use of the crown and preferred to wear a veil. The Wedding March was played at one of your daughters’ marriages – in the coming weeks, we’ll tell you more about the traditions born in the Victorian Era!

Regardless of who started the trend, the truth is that the dress of dreams is undoubtedly one of the highest priorities of many brides. And you, have you already chosen your wedding dress for the wedding ceremony?