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Saturday, February 6, 2010

The Bride Wore Whatever She Wanted To: Offbeat Bride

So, two of my close friends are getting married and neither are very traditional. My best friend Glee is going to have an Asian-influenced Coca-Cola themed wedding (since she and her fiance are avid Coke lovers and she is an Eastern Art/Religions scholar). The other is very low-key and geeky, and I'm sure she won't be having a "white wedding" either.

Pictured here: The Arlnofini wedding portrait (Northern Renaissance), an 18th century wedding gown and Sophia Magdalena of Denmark's wedding attire. Evidentiary support that white wasn't always the tradition.

The fact is, the whole white dress ceremony thing is NOT traditional--it's a very recent development. Queen Victoria popularized the white dress in her marriage to Prince Albert in the 19th century, but before that most women wore a beautiful gown of any color to celebrate a wedding. Indian brides wear a deep red dress, and blue was another popular color in the West due to its association with the Virgin Mary. Many, many things have convinced me what is "traditional" right now is simply a long trend in Western bridal culture. I have nothing against the white wedding couples, but if you are the kind of girl who doesn't fit the mold or are just interested in seeing some awesome non-traditional wedding footage, check out the Offbeat Bride blog. Some of my personal favorites there:
A Revolutionary Girl Utena/gamer-themed same-sex wedding
An action movie trailer save-the-date
A kid's book characters-themed procession (Max from WTWTA as ringbearer!)
PIRATE WEDDING

Back to homework for me now, tata.

2 comments/comment?:

Jaime said...

Utena wedding!! *swoon*

Mariko said...

This is really cool. I personally want the white wedding (well off-white, it suits my complexion better, lol), but I love the idea of people wearing other colors. The eastern tradition of wearing red is beautiful! I wonder if the modern "something blue" is a derivation of the popularity of blue dresses to symbolize Mary?