Medieval wedding dresses

As we move into Spring, and in a little more than a week move out of Lent. the season for weddings will be here….

Medievalists.net has an article about what is known of medieval wedding dresses. It can be seen at What Did Brides Wear in the Middle Ages? A Guide to Medieval Wedding Dresses

I would add to the article the following few observations. 

The choice of blue for both the Queens Isabella, in the second case in 1396 with fleur de lys, shows how heraldry was very much a factor in designing such very public and ceremonial attire.

We do not know what Elizabeth Woodville wore for her clandestine marriage to King Edward IV. In May 1464. I think the dress so described must be the one she wore for her public recognition as Queen at Reading Abbey several months later on Michaelmas Day.

Although slightly later the article could have included the dress worn by Queen Mary I at her wedding in July 1554 at Winchester. This is described in contemporary accounts and was reconstructed a few years ago. The fabric is a very regal purple brocade, and with a white underskirt. The Queen was keen to follow traditional English custom and wore her hair loose, but this confirms that wedding dresses were fine quality but not white. Interestingly her husband King Philip, wore a largely white outfit but with an embroidered cloth of gold cape given to him by his bride. According to the Wikipedia article cited below he chose not to wear the other one she gave him considering it to be too flashy, as, in his typical fashion, he noted down in an inventory.

There is more about the wedding at The Wedding of the Century Part I: Mary I and Philip of Spain whilst Wikipedia has a very detailed account, which also brings out how descriptions vary, at Wedding of Mary I of England and Philip of Spain

Royal wedding dresses sometimes became church vestments. Thus the dress worn by Joan ‘the Fair Maid of Kent’ when she married Edward Prince of Wales was later given to St George’s Windsor and was used to make a vestment.  A later instance of that is the chasuble at the London Oratory which was made out of the wedding dress of the future Queen Marie Antoinette.