whaaattt??

[jenthompson]

Okay, so I follow the FIDM blog, and I saw their posts about wedding dresses from the Larson Collection today. I usually don't question their facts, but what the hell is going on with the 2 Victorian dresses? Please educate me if I'm wrong, but those are not wedding dresses. The 60's one looks like a ball gown, and the 80's one looks like a

Comments

[fight_darling]

I'll admit I know nothing about victorian wedding dresses, but the whole post had me thinking #throwaveilonit

[the_aristocat]

I agree. There are photos of royal Victorian ladies in sleeveless dresses circling the internet and they are said to be wedding portraits. And maybe they are. But I've also thought that sometimes the court presentation veil might make people assume it's a wedding portrait and label it as such. I don't know, I haven't looked in to it.
And perhaps royals had a wedding ball where they would wear a low cut bodice, but I don't think they would have entered the church in a sleeveless dress.
ALTHOUGH, there are paintings of queen Victoria's wedding ceremony in which she is wearing a short sleeved dress, so I don't know what to think about that.

[nuranar]

To be fair, the 1880s info blurb says that the dress was "remodeled" to be a court dress and "we can only guess" at how it originally looked. Not sure about the 1860s one, though. That's not a regular morning wedding dress style, no matter how much remodeling was done.

[jenthompson]

Oops - I missed that line! I just skimmed the text and was mainly looking at the photo caption that says "wedding dress". I wouldn't have been so annoyed if it had said "court presentation gown remodeled from a wedding dress".

Glad to know I'm not crazy about the 60's one.

[nuranar]

It's written in a chatty article-type way - annoying, though, when the pictures are actually discussed! And I agree that it would not be appropriate for an Orthodox wedding. Though it could have been worn for an evening reception later; I have no idea what Eastern European royalty did. Typically English/American weddings were small at the church in the morning, then back to the house for the wedding breakfast, then the going-away; no evening receptions until after the trip. There was variation even then, though. I might poke around and refresh my memory, since you've got me curious now.

On a totally different topic, do you have any scraps of gray silk I can buy from you? I'm still trying to figure out how to do my aubergine jacket, but silk binding seems fairly common.

[bauhausfrau]

[jenthompson]

Isn't Romania an Orthodox country? I can't imagine any woman entering an Orthodox Church in such a revealing dress. You certainly couldn't wear that in their churches now, so I find it hard to believe anybody wore it for a wedding then. But I'm probably being a brat by insisting that a wedding dress was the one worn in a church vs. for the after party. I don't doubt that this was part of a remodeled wedding dress or an evening version of it, but I just hate it when modern audiences are led to believe that victorian ball gowns were worn for the actual ceremony. It's a silly pet peeve of mine.

[ashamanja_babu]

" I just hate it when modern audiences are led to believe that victorian ball gowns were worn for the actual ceremony."

THIS.

In fact, I still think it's weird that modern bridal fashion is based on evening or cocktail attire instead of daywear. I suppose that's what is behind this assumption. People now associate a low necked, evening look with wedding gowns. :P

[nuranar]

That's a good point. Maybe it's because most weddings now take place in the evening, or at least afternoon? So evening/cocktail wear makes sense. In the 19th century at least, they usually took place in the morning. Hence "wedding breakfast."

[sewphisticate]

I wonder if the ELisabeth of Romania dress might have been what we'd think of as a reception dress, not the dress worn for the actual ceremony, which I would imagine had considerable more lace and veils and embellishment.