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W E D D I N G S
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No White Wedding
THE FREEDOM TO CHOOSE A COLORFUL WEDDING DRESS
W
hen I tell people that I will not wear white for my wedding (if ever and
whenever that may be) I’m usually greeted with puzzled looks. Even my
pragmatic, progressive Dutch South African mother flat-out told me I was
being silly. “Well, why not?” she asks, baffled.
I tick off two lists of reasons I have collected over the past ten years.
There is the aesthetic, sensible list: I love color; If I’m going to
spend a significant sum of money on a dress, why limit myself to
white? And because of spending said significant sum of money, I
want the opportunity to wear it again. I spill on everything I wear;
it’s cheaper to buy a really nice gown than a white wedding dress.
I don’t want to look like every other bride. Then there is the
symbolic list: I’m not a virgin. I’m wary of the societal and
gendered implications.
My mother listens, nodding. “I don’t know, Alexandra,” she
says when I’m done. “White is just so pretty and traditional.” My
mother is not alone. In an informal Facebook poll of friends and
acquaintances (and a lifetime of anecdotal evidence), women of all
ages responded, largely citing “cultural traditions” and a way to
signify to the community why this day is special. The answers were
generally thoughtful and lovely. So why then, do I not share this
view? The answer, which only became truly clear after researching
the origins of the white wedding dress and how it has progressed,
has to do with societal signifiers and the signified.
As many Western traditions do, the white wedding dress finds
its origins in the British monarchy, or to be more specific, Queen
Victoria’s wedding to Prince Albert in 1840. The queen was
smitten with Honiton lace, which traditionally came in white, and
thus enshrouded herself with the delicate fabric. Up until that
point in Western society, grey and black had both been deemed suitable for weddings and
during medieval times, rich jewel tones, yards of fabric and furs were prized for brides as
they signified wealth. But images of the queen in the white, lacy, voluminous gown
circulated widely and the trend soon became de rigueur in middle class and affluent
circles. As sociology professor Chrys Ingraham cites in his book White Weddings:
Romancing Heterosexuality in Popular Culture, white “was hard to keep clean, and
cleanliness was becoming more valued as a sign of privilege … The queen herself, and the
era she lived in, valued the ideal of female sexual purity and associated this trait with the
color white. In Western culture, there were only two kinds of women, good ones (mothers
or virgins) and evil ones (whores) … At her wedding, the pure
woman wore a white veil and gown to signify her virginity.”
Ah, privilege and sexual purity, two concepts that have never
fallen gently on the backs of women throughout history. There’s
more. Scholar Erika Buckley writes in “A Cross-Cultural Study of
Weddings through Media and Ritual,” “One of the most important
and most expensive rituals in the wedding is the wearing of a white
wedding dress. This dress usually is only worn by the purchaser
once.” She continues, “Only with wealth, or the concept of having
wealth, can a person wear an article of clothing, which cost them
several hundreds or thousands of dollars, for one day and then have
it sit in storage or give it away.” That just doesn’t make much sense
to my thrifty side.
Tracing the history of one of the most iconic images that make
up the “American Dream” (or perhaps more appropriately here, the
“American Fairy Tale”) — the white wedding dress — was a
reminder that for me, the political is personal and the personal is
political. However, that is not true for everyone. Society looks upon
the same signifiers, but individuals interpret the meaning, or the
signified, individually, especially in a time when traditional notions
of marriage are challenged and changing frequently. Whereas I see
outdated gender and class roles, many people see joy, lightness,
QUEEN VICTORIA, 1840
love and “purity of intent” — all beautiful notions that I admire.
But the biggest concern of mine is that women have the freedom to choose, whether
that’s white, black or tie-dye. So I choose a new tradition and will enshroud myself in the
aquamarine blues, saturated fuchsias or mint greens that make my heart sing. And who
knows? Maybe I’ll make everyone else wear white. — Alex Notman
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eugeneweekly.com • January 10, 2013
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