How White Wedding Dresses Became a Western Tradition

For much of history going back to ancient Rome, brides didn’t wear white. Upper class brides throughout Europe wore richly colored dresses—think reds, blues and pinks—in extravagantly dyed fabrics that signified their wealth and status in society.

All of this changed for Western brides after the marriage of Queen Victoria to Prince Albert in the mid-19th century. Her game-changing fashion decision aligned with advances in photography, which helped popularize white wedding dresses among the masses.

Up until the mid-19th century, most brides chose the best dress they owned, usually one they had previously worn. Before the Industrial Revolution, the idea of having a dress you’d wear only once would have been ridiculous, even for the very rich, author and scholar Summer Brennan wrote for JSTOR Daily.

White dresses were rare at this time because keeping them clean was very difficult. “Black and brown dresses were actually very common. They were the most practical,” says Sarah Berenz, curator at The Ohio State University’s Historic Costume & Textiles Collection.

Brides occasionally obtained dyed fabrics in secondhand markets and had their dress tailored, Berenz explains, but most of the time, 19th-century brides wore their favorite celebratory occasion dress.

Aristocratic and royal brides, meanwhile, celebrated their wedding day in highly decorative dresses. Components like brocade fabrics (luxurious patterned silk textiles) acted as visual displays of their families’ wealth and status.

“The monarchy in Europe, the aristocracy, landed gentry [and] even newly powerful merchant classes really liked richly colored fabrics made with expensive dyes because that signified their wealth,” Berenz says. “[From] 1500 to 1800, there’s also a trend of cream, champagne and gold brocades… Then you have colorful embroidery and ribbons and bows on top of that [with] metallic threads in silver and gold [to] really catch the light.”

Color has been used to denote identity, power and class since ancient times. In the Victorian period, wearing a white wedding dress could be seen as a sign of purity because there was an emphasis on cleanliness and health at that time, Berenz explains. “[The] cities were very dirty, as was the countryside, and white was seen as a sanitary choice,” she says.

But other dress colors, like blue, were also linked to fidelity and piety, Berenz notes. She points to images of the Virgin Mary, who is often dressed in blue.

Bright dress colors, like reds, were linked to wealth and power. Brides in the newly powerful merchant classes and landed gentry in the Victorian era who were trying to exert their identities would often wear red to signify that affluence.

When Queen Victoria and Prince Albert got married in February 1840, she broke from royal custom. “She [chose] this all-white ensemble versus the traditional heavy red velvet court attire, which you would typically see with a reigning monarch,” Berenz says.

Victoria’s dress was relatively simple compared to what royal brides before her had worn. Whereas earlier gowns were usually encrusted in silver or gold with embroidery and jewels, hers was constructed of all British luxury materials, including cream Spitalfields satin and handmade Honiton lace. The lace pattern was said to have been destroyed so it could never be copied. The dress was further embellished with orange blossoms and an 18-foot train. Rather than wear a crown, Queen Victoria chose a delicate wreath of orange blossoms for her hairpiece.

“[Her dress] sent a strong signal to the world that British luxury goods are the best, and ‘I, as reigning monarch, am going to wear these, so should you,’” Berenz says. “After her wedding breakfast, she put on this white silk gown, which is trimmed in swan feathers, and a bonnet with more orange blossoms.”

While there are no photos of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert on their actual wedding day (they recreated the day for photos in 1854), news of their marriage and illustrations of the couple spread across the globe in newspapers, magazines and souvenir art. The royal relationship was so glamorized that brides wanted Queen Victoria’s dress.

Technological innovation also played a role in promoting the trend. When wedding portraits eventually became affordable for most people, cameras captured white dresses better than colored ones, Brennan wrote. By the mid-1800s, women’s magazines were telling brides-to-be that white was the only color for their wedding dress.

Queen Victoria’s dress survives today and is part of the Royal Collection Trust. More recent royal weddings continue to influence how brides dress. It’s been 15 years since Prince William and Princess Kate’s wedding, but lookalikes of her iconic dress are still plentiful.

Wedding style has continued to evolve, of course. “As folks in the LGBTQ+ community have gained rights…the wedding dress is not just for the heterosexual female bride,” Berenz says. “You might have same-sex couples both wearing white wedding dresses or both wearing white tuxedos.” And dresses of all colors have returned to shop racks.

Even so, the classic white wedding dress is timeless, Berenz says, and there’s no reason to think that will change.