I'd heard it was Queen Victoria who initiated the white wedding dress tradition.
Preceding the existence of oxi-clean-max-instant-spray-foam-gel-powder-wipes, or even today's most basic laundry solutions, white fabric was the height of luxurious nonchalance. Regardless of connotations of youthful innocence, wearing a dress so conspicuously vulnerable, and exorbitantly priced, was a royal boast to the masses.
The concept of a young lady donning a dress worth more than any middle-class man could dream of, flouncing around in it for less than half a day, before sloshing wine and smearing cake down the front of it, is a fairly sickening display of wealth superiority, isn't it?
Then again, the sheer audacity of such reckless extravagance - although ludicrously indulgent - is somewhat magical through its devotion to beauty.
Poor Princess Caroline of Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel could hardly walk to the altar to marry George IV, Prince of Wales, because her dress was so "rich and heavy". However, this inconvenience was overlooked by journalists, who wrote that her dress - with all its tissue and lace, and a lengthy robe of ermine-lined velvet - was "superb beyond description". Did it matter that she couldn't stand unsupported throughout the ceremony?
No! Beauty is pain, right?
While reading these details in 18th-century newspapers, for lack of photographs, one must form a mental picture of the garments, through writers' descriptions. It was easy enough to depict the grooms - they always got married in uniform, how boring - so all interest focused on the bride's attire.
During last year's royal wedding, weren't we all waiting for Kate Middleton to just step out of the car, so that we could marvel at her dress? Even over 200 years ago, the bride's gown was the talked-about topic in society: Who furnished the wardrobe? Who was the dressmaker? Would it be lined with oriental pearls, or adorned with bars of diamonds? How long was the train, exactly, and who held it as she walked?
"The plume of feathers in her head-dress was most elegantly supported with a bandeau of diamonds. The Duchess of York was dressed in satin, trimmed with gold. Her Royal Highness wore a cape and bandeau of diamonds and brilliants, which supported a plume of feathers, in the front of which was a heron feather, which cost 250."
This article in the London Public Advertiser, written on April 17, 1795, wastes few words describing the men's garments: "The Prince of Wales, Dukes of York, Clarence, and Gloucester, were in their uniforms."
Anyway, aside from trimmings, and perhaps an ermine-lined robe, my research revealed that most English 18th-century royal wedding dresses were white - well before Queen Victoria's time. Enlightening and educational, these old articles - from publications such as St James's Chronicle, The London Evening Post, The Public Advertiser - also provided (reassuring) testimony to the longevity of newspapers, and a reminder of the constancy of human curiosity for life's pretty trivialities.
• Katie Kenny studies English at the University of Otago.
