History: Evolution Of Wedding Dress 1870 - 1980

Over the centuries, brides continued to dress in a manner befitting their social status—always in the height of fashion, with the richest, boldest materials money could buy. The poorest of brides wore their best church dress on their wedding day. The amount of material a wedding dress contained also was a reflection of the bride's social standing and indicated the extent of the family's wealth to wedding guests. Today, there are wedding dresses available in all price ranges, and Western traditions have loosened up to include a rainbow of colors and variety of lengths, which are now considered acceptable. Women may purchase ready-made gowns, wear a family heirloom, or they may choose to have a dressmaker create one for her. In addition, today many bridal salons have samples of wedding gowns in their stores where the bride selects a certain style and orders one to be made to fit.
Wedding dresses have traditionally been based on the popular styles of the day. For example, in the 1920s, wedding dresses were typically short in the front with a longer train in the back and were worn with cloche-style wedding veils. This tendency to follow current fashions continued until the late 1940s, when it became popular to revert to long, full-skirted designs reminiscent of the Victorian era. Although there has always been a style that dominates the bridal market for a time, and then shifts with the changes in fashion, a growing number of modern brides are not choosing to follow these trends. This is due in large part to non-traditional and non-first-time weddings, and women who are marrying later in life.
Today, Western wedding dresses are usually white though "wedding white" includes creamy shades such as eggshell, ecru and ivory. It's also important to take into account the rising trend of selecting second hand wedding dresses over brand new in an attempt to lower wedding costs.
Mary, Queen of Scots, wore a white wedding gown when she married her first husband, Francis Dauphin of France in 1559. She chose to wear a white gown because it was her favorite color, although at the time white was the color of mourning for French Queens. Although, Philippa of England was actually the first documented princess in history to wear a white wedding gown during a royal wedding ceremony: she wore a tunic with a cloak in white silk bordered with grey squirrel and ermine).