Each week in April, Vanity Fair will look back at a different royal wedding in British history in the lead-up to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s May 19 nuptials.
Kate Middleton may still be considered a bridal icon seven years after her wedding day, but Queen Victoria made such a sartorial impression nearly 180 years ago that her example of wearing white is still considered mandatory by many a traditional bride. Though the monarch is mostly remembered for her funeral-black wardrobe—which she devotedly wore for 40 years after the death of her beloved husband, Albert—she actually popularized the white wedding gown when she was a blushing, 20-year-old bride. And the color choice had nothing to do with purity either.
“Victoria had chosen to wear white mostly because it was the perfect color to highlight the delicate lace [of her gown],” wrote biographer Julia Baird of the monarch’s no-nonsense fashion choice. Victoria, understanding that she was to be the star of this particular show, did, however, “ask that no one else wear white to the wedding” aside from her bridesmaids. Until that point, most women wore bright, colorful dresses on their wedding day that could be recycled for other occasions. When women did wear bridal white, before Queen Victoria, the color was seen as an indicator of wealth—denoting that the bride’s family could afford to have the dress cleaned.
Though photographs were not taken of the wedding—it would be about a decade before photography techniques were developed enough for such occasions—Victoria’s choice of a white wedding made world news courtesy of newspaper reports, paintings of the ceremony, and souvenir artwork. Fourteen years later, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert reportedly staged a wedding re-enactment for a photographer (below).
Queen Victoria and Prince Albert pose for a reenactment of their marriage in 1854.
Ironically, Victoria and her team of advisers put more thought into the symbolism of the dress’s materials than the color itself—choosing cream satin woven in the Spitalfields, the historic center of the silk industry in London, and handmade Honiton lace, selected to boost the lace industry. (Victoria’s lace pattern was said to have been destroyed after work was completed on Victoria’s gown so that the intricate template could not be copied.) The gown was further adorned with orange blossoms—a symbol of fertility that worked, considering her eventual brood of nine children—and an 18-foot-long train.
Though she had been a queen for three years before getting married, Victoria made a conscious choice to prioritize her wifeliness, rather than monarch-ness, on her wedding day—by vowing to “obey” her husband and opting to forgo a crown, fur, or any other royal accessories. (The gender roles were not so traditional for Victoria and Albert during their courtship: Victoria proposed to Albert, her first cousin—as queen she had no choice but to propose herself.) Victoria would go on to identify so strongly as a wife throughout the rest of her life that she recycled her wedding wardrobe over the years—wearing her lace flounce and veil for the christenings of her children, her diamond jubilee portrait (underneath her crown), and her son Leopold’s wedding.
