This article is featured in the 2013 edition of Sudbury Living Weddings, available now.
Don’t miss Sudbury Living Bridal Showcase @ United Steelworker’s Hall, March 2, 2013
White wedding dresses are said to represent purity, fidelity, and steadfastness, desired qualities in a marriage. For now, North American brides prefer wear red to bed.
However, Chinese brides traditionally wear red, the colour of luck, on their wedding days. Modern Chinese brides often wear a white (Western) dress for the ceremony and a red dress for the family tea ceremony and reception. Some brides changes dresses as many as three times in one day.
The fashionable Queen Victoria wore white on her wedding day in 1842 and established the custom. As early as 1849, according to writer Jude Stewart, author of The Bride Wore Chartreuse: Why (Most) Wedding Dresses, Godey’s Lady’s Book, the Good Housekeeping of 19th-century America, issued a pronouncement that thousands of European brides were already following: “Custom has decided, from the earliest ages, that white is the most fitting hue, whatever may be the material. It is an emblem of the purity and innocence of girlhood, and the unsullied heart she now yields to the chosen one.”
Stylish modern brides are selecting wedding dresses with trimmed with colour. As well, pale pink, peach and blush wedding dresses are another trend on the 2013 fashion runway.
Actress Anne Hathaway wore a custom-made pink Valentino gown when she married to Adam Shulman. The bride’s off-the-shoulders dress was made of ivory silk point d’espirit tulle with a pink hand-painted train embroidered with satin flowers.
Jessica Biel looked pretty in pink when she said “I do” to Justin Timberlake.
When Gwen Stefanie married Gavin Rossdale, she wore n a Christian Dior dress, designed by John Galliano. The gown had a bright pink bottom which faded into white half way up.
Reese Witherspoon opted for a blush-pink Monique Lhuillier dress for her wedding to Jim Toth.
For the record, fashion maven Sarah Jessica Parker of Sex and The City fame wore black when she wed Matthew Broderick in 1997. Harper’s Bazaar (February 2009) reported she regrets that decision and that she would wear white if she were going to renew her vows. This has not discouraged the master of wedding dress design Vera Wang. She is decking her models in black wedding gowns this season as well as red ones.
