Wedding Dresses

All women dream of having the perfect wedding. What else makes a perfect wedding but a wedding dress that will make every bride look like a queen even for a day or night, depending on the time of the wedding ceremony?

A wedding dress is a piece of clothing worn by a bride during the wedding ceremony. In modern times, western culture wedding dresses normally come in white and various shades of white, namely eggshell, ivory, or ecru. The queen chose white as the color of her wedding dress and other women followed her lead. Later, the color white became synonymous with virginity.

The term bridal gown came from the word al which means “party” combined with bride equals bridal party gown. A Western woman normally wears a veil on her wedding day if she chooses an all white wedding motif. Brides used to wear their hair long, flowing down their back during their wedding to symbolize virginity.

Over the centuries wedding dresses have changed, but a bride has always wanted her dress to be special, to make her look more beautiful. Centuries ago, only the rich could afford materials of red, purple, and true black; therefore, the wealthy brides would wear dresses of color adorned with jewels. In the 1800's, gray became a color for wedding gowns for brides of lower classes because the dress became re-used as the bride’s Sunday best.

The “traditional” wedding dress as known today didn’t appear until the 1800's. By 1800, machine made fabrics and inexpensive muslins made the white dress with a veil the prevailing fashion. By the nineteenth century, a bride wearing her white dress after the wedding was accepted. As times passed, women’s fashions changed. Hems rose and fell, but the long dress, with or without a train, remained the length preferred by brides. Today’s wedding dress fad appears to be the strapless dress, which looks lovely on some figures. Some brides still want styles of the past.