The Wedding Dress

For those of us who've gotten married, the wedding dress can be hard to find just the right one. On the other hand, some of us just want to get married and the less fan-fare the better. It was no different for the ladies of the 19th Century as it is/was for us today. In fact an entire novel was written "The Wedding Dress" by Fanny Wheeler ©1876.

A drama was written titled "The Wedding Gown" and had two acts. ©1837

Below is an excerpt from "The Highland Inn" ©1839 about wedding dresses which I found quite fun:

When any thing occurs to annoy or to vex me, when my mind is irritated or my temper ruffled, in order to sooth the one and to daughter's wedding. Luckily for the proprieties of the thing, he fell into a grave the week before, 'sprained his ankle, and was obliged to have a deputy, both to give his daughter away, and to perform the responses. The bride looked more than usually beautiful, although there was a delicacy in her complexion which still augured ill health; and it was even then prophesied, by some of the croakers of the place, that she would not enjoy her prosperity long: but the more favourable observation was, that her ill health made her look the more like a lady, and fitter to be the parson's wife. My Aunt has still a picture of her in her wedding dress. By the bye, I think wedding dresses in general the most tawdry, ill-fitting things. I have a friend who wears hers regularly every year, and supposes that a dress made for her when she was thin and pretty can suit her when she has had a dozen children. But my mother's was a very simple attire. Her rich hair, untutored by the fashion of the time to travel upwards, when nature intended it to shade her fair forehead, was suffered to appear in unadorned ringlets under a white lace veil, the present of my great great Aunt Tabitton, who sent it to her from Northamptonshire. I forget the other details of her dress; nor will you expect me to give you a dissertation on her dress with the same precision as the Ladies' Magazine, or the Belle Assemblee. But this I know, that she not only looked so lovely, that the ladies, in allusion to a novel of Miss Burney's, called her Evelina, but also so elegant, that some of the genteelest people in Averford were proud to speak of her afterwards as their acquaintance. Indeed, it was remarkable that those who had not deemed her worth a glance, as they passed her, now began to speak of her as ' their friend Miss Middleton, their charming protegee, their sweet and interesting early acquaintance.'
"For my father, I am told that he was the handsomest bridegroom that had been seen in Averford for a century: but that is not saying much. However, he looked like what he was, the Honourable and Reverend Mr. Percival; and, I may say, conducted himself as such. My mother trembled as the solemn service proceeded; but the tears were all shed by her sister and her fond mother, the latter especially, who foresaw, in her child's elevation, estrangement from her humble home. Miss Courtenay was not present; for she was absent from her home, on a hasty excursion to the Lakes.