There are new trends and developments every day in the wedding dress industry. A wedding dress someone had even two years ago, would be radically different to the popular ones purchased today. We traditionally wear white dresses for wedding ceremonies in Western culture, but why?
I personally thought that white represented virginity and purity everywhere. As it turns out, cross-cultural differences mean that in other regions of the world, white is sometimes used at funerals to represent mourning! So, this would be a vital point to keep in mind if you ever wanted to get married around Asia!
In our Western culture, white represents innocence and purity. The colour can be seen as a blank canvas for a new beginning. According to the BBC, white was not initially chosen for its symbolism of purity. Apparently throughout the 18th Century, it was next to impossible to have a perfectly white garment, using only a washboard and elbow grease to clean clothes. Therefore, white was actually used to represent wealth, because those brides could afford to have and keep a white dress! Learn something new every day, eh?
Queen Victoria – Wed in 1940
Queen Victoria’s white, lace dress is believed to have had a large influence on the evolution of the traditional white wedding dress. At the end of the day, when it comes to your wedding, everything is your decision. A person’s wedding ensemble is to be a reflection of them, just like food and music tastes differ; fashion is totally personal taste. What I think is beautiful; someone else might think is awful and vice versa.
These days, many brides break the rules and have something different. We see many dresses that go against the traditional white, celebrities such as Dita Von Teese and Reese Withersoon have opted for purple and pink variations. Check out our blog, for more recent Wedding Dress Trends.
Reese Witherspoon wed in 2011
What do you think, are you going to wear white on your big day?
Images via Wikipedia and The Daily Mail
