“Here comes the bride, all dressed in white … ” goes a traditional wedding song, but this modern image not always precisely transfers the past. The purchase of a white dress, on a unique case was too much of an expensive pleasure and a lot of women preferred to put on their best attire instead of it. The modest Victorian brides, who put on white dresses, often preserved them for some special occasions (so you can look for this dress on other photos as well). The brides actually wore various attires, including already familiar white dress. The dresses reflect the fashion of the epoch, when the couple got married. The colours of a wedding dress were different, from dark blue, symbolizing fidelity, up to crimson, in memory of those lost in Civil War. In 1870s and 1880s, the fashionable brides chose dress colours from new synthetic shades. That is one of the reasons, a woman proudly posed for the photography in brown silk checkered dress on the day of her wedding. She has ratified a style.
The identification of the image based on clothing, can define the date of a photo within the limits of couple of years. Because of tradition of wearing mother's or grandmother's dress, be careful while estimating dates of a wedding dress. In one photo, the groom was dressed in 1930s style, but the bride's dress dated back to the late 19th century. She only updated her appearance with a new vail. It is necessary to look at each part of an attire of the bride to make sure, that a dress and the accessories concern to the same epoch.
There are some accessories connected to the brides irrespective of their choice of a dress. Vails, flowers, frills and flounces can decorate the most simple attire and, hence, can identify a wedding portrait. The orange blossom, choice of the Queen Victoria, on her wedding with Prince Albert, remained a popular decoration within decades. Even the men pinned small bunches of blossoms to their jackets, to mark a wedding. According to the book of etiquette of 1901, the rich young women could wear their first tiara at the wedding. One woman was dressed in a simple dark dress, but used fur, and vail as accessories. The economical women bought vail or borrowed from someone, as the borrowed thing is a wedding tradition. If the dress is new, a vail may be a family relic.
Consult the fashion books, such as Joahn Severa's book, "Dressed for the Photographer " (Kent State University Press, 1997) and compare the wedding photos to other snapshots. You can also find the examples of stylish ceremonies of wedding in the American women magazines such as Godey's Lady Book (1830-98) and Bride Magazine (1933 till today).
