I had wanted to talk about this relevant issue yesterday, but my entry on shopping ended up being much longer than I had expected. Thank God for all our tomorrows.
So...I ended up with a somewhat-fluffy whitish dress. So sue me, ok? It was not what I wanted when I started planning, but I love it! (And it was a great deal and under my budget.) It's an ivory dress with a sweetheart neckline and capped sleeves: incredibly elegant and timeless.
But actually going dress shopping did raise a few questions (and eyebrows). Why do brides wear white?
In our culture, it is traditional for the bride to wear a dress of some shade of white, whether snow white, ivory, or cream. We have come to associate the color white with the bride's purity (i.e. her virginity). But there has always been much emphasis placed on the bride's virginity...er, purity...in the long tradition of matrimony. A long, long, long time, ago marriages were not matters of the heart, but of business, and let's just say businessmen don't like to buy "damaged" or "spoiled" goods. So in the past (or in old movies...or movies set in older times), so-called "loose" women and those not entering into their first marriages were/are scoffed at for wearing this now-traditional bridal color.
But white was not always the choice for ladies walking down the aisle. While white has long been associated with joy and celebration, it has never been a practical color. For ages, brides have been marrying in whatever clothes were special to them in every shade imaginable...but less likely in white. White is obviously easily sullied, and so only the rich could afford to wear and care for the color. A white garment has always been more difficult to launder (which is why I rarely wear it), and so it would not be suitable for daily wear. Only the wealthy could afford to wear white.
Trendsetter Queen Victoria popularized the white dress when she married Prince Albert in 1840. Up until that time, brides wore what they had. In other cultures, you will find dresses in colors traditional to that culture. There is no shame in choosing to wear a dress that is not white or off-white. Brides today are becoming increasingly comfortable in choosing to express their personalities or simply what color in which they look best. If I had found an affordable blue dress, or chose to wear my favorite color black, or picked red because my mother always says I look good in red, I would have proudly worn such a dress, even if every person called me Jezebel Pharr after we said, "I do."
So...I ended up with a somewhat-fluffy whitish dress. So sue me, ok? It was not what I wanted when I started planning, but I love it! (And it was a great deal and under my budget.) It's an ivory dress with a sweetheart neckline and capped sleeves: incredibly elegant and timeless.
But actually going dress shopping did raise a few questions (and eyebrows). Why do brides wear white?
In our culture, it is traditional for the bride to wear a dress of some shade of white, whether snow white, ivory, or cream. We have come to associate the color white with the bride's purity (i.e. her virginity). But there has always been much emphasis placed on the bride's virginity...er, purity...in the long tradition of matrimony. A long, long, long time, ago marriages were not matters of the heart, but of business, and let's just say businessmen don't like to buy "damaged" or "spoiled" goods. So in the past (or in old movies...or movies set in older times), so-called "loose" women and those not entering into their first marriages were/are scoffed at for wearing this now-traditional bridal color.
But white was not always the choice for ladies walking down the aisle. While white has long been associated with joy and celebration, it has never been a practical color. For ages, brides have been marrying in whatever clothes were special to them in every shade imaginable...but less likely in white. White is obviously easily sullied, and so only the rich could afford to wear and care for the color. A white garment has always been more difficult to launder (which is why I rarely wear it), and so it would not be suitable for daily wear. Only the wealthy could afford to wear white.
Trendsetter Queen Victoria popularized the white dress when she married Prince Albert in 1840. Up until that time, brides wore what they had. In other cultures, you will find dresses in colors traditional to that culture. There is no shame in choosing to wear a dress that is not white or off-white. Brides today are becoming increasingly comfortable in choosing to express their personalities or simply what color in which they look best. If I had found an affordable blue dress, or chose to wear my favorite color black, or picked red because my mother always says I look good in red, I would have proudly worn such a dress, even if every person called me Jezebel Pharr after we said, "I do."
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