The Wedding Dress
(A portion of this article has been reproduced from The Victoria Files at https://thequeenvictoriafiles.wordpress.com)
It is said that Victoria started the trend of wearing a white colored dress on her wedding day. However, not many know how complicated that journey had come to be.
In the early days of planning her wedding, Lord Melbourne suggested that she might wear her royal robes of state. As she mentions in her diary, “They talked about me wearing my robes, but I thought not.”
Emily Blunt as Victoria on her wedding day, The Young Victoria, 2009
She made it clear that her wedding was not like others of the time where it was all for advancement and gain with no thought of romantic preference. Her wedding was a personal affair; she was marrying for love.
In the end, Victoria would design her own dress as well as her bridesmaids’ dresses.
Painting of Victoria in her wedding dress,
She had her dress made entirely of British materials, as was well publicised at the time. This was a political move as she was showing to foreign powers just what her country had to offer and that she was still representing Britain.
The silk was woven in Spitalfields, East London and the lace was handmade in Devon. Finally, the outfit was sewed together by Victoria’s own dressmaker, a Mrs Bettans, with the pattern being destroyed afterwards to prevent the dress being replicated.
The finished garment would include a bodice, the waist pointed over a full, pleated skirt with full puffed sleeves and a round neck, all made of Spitalfields white silk satin.
The train was immense, measuring 18 feet and edged with orange blossom spays (orange blossom being a symbol of fertility). Orange blossom would feature a lot on her person as her wreath above her veil (which was 12 feet long) was made of it and it also trimmed her dress. She also wore silk satin slippers and a blue sapphire brooch at her breast - a wedding gift from Albert.
Each of her twelve bridesmaids wore a white dress trimmed with sprays of roses on the bodice and skirt and a matching spray of roses in their hair.
A watercolour design for Queen Victoria's twelve bridesmaids' dresses. Royal Collection Trust.
In her diary, on her wedding day of the tenth of February 1840, she described her whole outfit as thus , “I wore a white satin dress, with a deep flounce of Honiton lace, an imitation of an old design. My jewels were my Turkish diamond necklace & earrings & dear Albert’s beautiful sapphire brooch.”
Her silk satin wedding slippers with silk ties.
Victoria did not wear her actual wedding dress for the entire day. When she returned to Buckingham Palace after the service and wedding breakfast, she withdrew to change into a white silk gown trimmed with swansdown and a white bonnet with orange flowers, an outfit very similar to her original ensemble.
Years later, Victoria would allow her favorite daughter Beatrice (who would be one of the queen’s few close companions in widowhood) to wear her wedding veil at her own wedding in 1885 (see photograph below). She would be the only daughter of Victoria allowed this special privilege.
In the 12 page funeral manual she dictated to her doctor, she requested that she be buried wearing her lace wedding veil.
Queen Victoria on Her Death Bed by Sir Hubert von Herkomer. Royal Trust Collection
