It's a Girl Thing

"Love Story" by Taylor Swift

As the song goes "pick out a white dress" and we have for over 100 years. Since Queen Victoria started the trend of white wedding gowns our Western culture equates all things wedding with wedding gowns and vice versa. Of course there are exceptions as some brides elect to marry in shorts and a t-shirt, but for the majority a wedding gown is usually included in the festivities.

You can always analyze each layer of "the gown" and talk about the style, the color, fit, the venue it will coordinate with, the wedding palette, the theme, the accessories, etc,etc.. All of which are very important of course! What intrigues me the most is what we can learn from past brides. What can a modern 2016 bride can take away from a 1916 bride? What do the brides from the past have in common with brides of today???

1950s bride

A modern bride of today perhaps doesn't want to be compared to a bride from the 1950s like the above. "I would never wear that!" or "I don't want to look like my grandmother!" "I want to look modern" a today bride might say. What is the definition of modern? As a stylist, I've learned this definition is not a one size fits all. Likewise when I ask "Do you feel like a bride?" That loaded question always conjures an image of a bride that is unique to the individual. What makes one girl feel like a bride might be the polar opposite for another.

Ultimately, brides today decide on a gown they adore not because they feel like they are true to the times, but because they feel beautiful. The bride who falls in love a second time (the first love is of course with her groom!) with her dress does not look in the mirror and say thank goodness I don't look like my grandmother (with all due respect). She usually says I feel a-mazing and cries looking at the gown she will wear down the aisle!

Can we learn from the past? Always. There was elegance. A demure innocence when I study photos of past brides. Many times they were very young women under the age of 20. They sometimes look frightened and for good reason. In the 1800s you were not to smile in your wedding photo! Aside from facial gestures, I adore photos of brides and their attire from all of the decades photos were available. The styles, fabrics and accessories were so indicative of the times and each bride wore them with feminine grace. It is our duty to carry on that grace. Most designers of today do capture it from the inspiring brides from the past.

If you have an heirloom wedding gown available to you take it out, examine its grandeur and give homage to the woman who wore it. Like you she was a girl who liked pretty things and she was a bride.