Early Victorian Wedding Customs (1837-1860)

Early Victorian Wedding Style. Photo by Alvin Mahmudov on Unsplash.

Early Victorian wedding customs took shape when Queen Victoria married Prince Albert, in 1840. Throughout the ensuing years, even beyond Prince Albert's death in 1860, the choices Queen Victoria made for her wedding reverberate forward, echoing even within today's western wedding customs. For Queen Victoria and those married during these early years of her reign, the wedding began with an evening ceremony, followed the next morning by a special breakfast.

The Ceremony & Breakfast

Traditionally, Royal Weddings began with a private betrothal ceremony which took place at six o'clock in the evening. At that time, English law allowed non-royals to wed only in the morning at the bride's parish church. Following the wedding ceremony, non-royal couples retired directly to the home of the bride's parents for the customary wedding breakfast.

However, Queen Victoria turned royal tradition on its ear. Thinking always of her adoring subjects, Queen Victoria decided to forsake the Royal Wedding traditions in lieu of a very public wedding. Following the ceremony, their wedding breakfast took place at Buckingham Palace, where her mother indeed resided.

Queen Victoria's Wedding Dress

This Royal Wedding, held on a cold February morning in 1840, launched the enduring trend toward the white wedding dress. Indeed, for many decades white remained the color for everything, including decorations, flowers, and more.

The Peoples' Queen

Once again, Queen Victoria chose to align herself with her people, rather than giving in to Royal custom. As such, she departed from the customary Royal silver for her gown. (source) Instead, she chose a white silk gown from Spitalfields with white Honiton lace. She added white orange blossoms and myrtle sprigs in her hair and in her bouquet. (source)

The Queen further cemented this shift toward white weddings in the late 1850s. At that time, she insisted that the next two Royal brides (Princess Alexandra and Princess Alice) wear the same style of gowns and choose the same flowers for their weddings, as well.

Always trying to both avoid and recreate her happiest moments with Albert, Queen Victoria used her son's and daughter's weddings to relive her own wedding.

Spitalfields Silk & Honiton Lace

Furthermore, her insistence on Spitalfields silk and Honiton lace from Beer lie in her love of Charles Dickens. Not to mention her over-identification with the poor and downtrodden. Beginning with her wedding in 1840, the Queen used every opportunity to revive these two downtrodden areas of London.

Indeed, her patronage of white Spitalfields satin and Honiton lace from Beer supplied these communities with work and income for months. Especially, once the trend took hold and London's nobles and aristocrats began ordering from Beer and Spitalfields, as well. (source)

Change Takes Time

Of course, white fabric proved harder to find, not to mention its impracticality for most Early Victorian ladies. Commoners rarely purchased a dress they only wore once. Therefore, it took a couple of decades for white wedding gowns to overthrow the traditional Sunday best dress.

In fact, many early 1800s brides wore blue, soft green, cream, or ivory dresses. Some colonial brides even wore brown or black gowns. The blue wedding dress remained a holdover from Georgian Era traditions, when blue symbolized purity. These gowns, simple and without much embellishment served for daily wear or for Court presentation, as well.

The bride's family chose either organdy, linen, silk, or cashmere as the fabric for their daughter's wedding gown, depending on their available resources. Some dresses included tulle, gauze, or lace to accentuate the hemlines, shoulders, collar, and/or sleeves. No matter which materials they used, an Early Victorian wedding dress consisted of a form-fitting bodice with its trim waistline tucked into a full flowing skirt worn over hoops and petticoats. (source)

To complete the effect, the early-18^th century bride wore embroidered white silk stockings and ballet-like slippers made of white satin, brocade, or white kid with ribbons at the instep to secure them to the ankles. In her gloved hands, a Victorian bride carried a white handkerchief embroidered with her prenuptial initials and a beautiful bouquet of garden herbs and flowers, such as roses or peonies, giving way toward the end of the period to the Queen's preference for white orange blossoms. (source)

Early Victorian Wedding Veils

Over her coiffed hair, the Early Victorian bride, all dressed in white, wore a white wreath of flowers, most likely orange blossoms. An attendant attached her veil to the back of this garland of flowers. Her veil stretched long and white, fashioned from a thin gauzy material such as sheer cotton, or Brussels lace (later Honiton lace).

Though in 1840, Queen Victoria broke with tradition and chose a waist-length veil, most brides in the early 1800s wore full-length veils which trailed behind them like an angelic cloud.

In some Victorian portraits, bridal veils appear to create the appearance of a gauzy booth where the bride hides away until her the completion of her vows. After the ceremony, many brides converted their veil to a shawl which they most likely wore during the wedding breakfast.

I especially love how many of our modern traditions date back to a time when the Queen of England used her influence to support the downtrodden and identify herself with her subjects. A beautiful sentiment indeed.

~Angela Magnotti Andrews