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Though nearly all of Jane Austen’s works end with a wedding, she does not spend much time detailing the weddings themselves, much less the wedding dresses.

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Modern brides often spend a great deal of effort and money on the wedding dress and expect to wear it only once. Honestly, it is hard to imagine another event where wearing one’s wedding dress might be appropriate. Not exactly the sort of thing you’d wear to dinner, right?

In the regency era, though, the cost of textiles was so prohibitive that only royals like Princess Charlotte and equally wealthy brides even considered dresses that might only be worn once. A bride, like Charlotte Lucas of Pride and Prejudice or Harriet Smith of Emma, wore her ‘best dress’ for her wedding. A bride with some means, like Emma or even perhaps the Bennets, might have a new ‘best dress’ made for the occasion.

What might this ‘best dress’ look like? Unless one were quite wealthy, it would not be white. White garments required a huge amount of upkeep in an era where all wash was done by hand, so only the wealthiest wore it. Colored gowns were typical, with yellow, blue, pink and green being popular for several Regency era years. Middle and lower class brides often chose black, dark brown and burgundy as practical colors that would wear well for years to come.

Public Domain Images

Fashion plates from Ackerman’s and La Belle Assemblee illustrate gowns used for weddings. Although all these gowns are white, that is more indicative of the white gown being the most stylish of the era, rather than white being the wedding color. All these gowns followed the fashionable trends of formal gowns of the day, but were largely indistinguishable from other formal gowns. The La Belle Assemblee dress above is cited as both an evening dress and a wedding dress. To set a bridal dress apart, finer materials and richer trims might be utilized if the bride could afford them: silks, satins and lace. The trims might be altered for wear after the wedding.

None of these fashion plate brides wore a veil. That fashion, though common in France, would not take hold in England until the Victorian era. Caps, hats, bonnets or flowers in the hair were common though.

“Since wedding gowns were often worn – to the point of being worn out – after the wedding, brides had to cherish something else. Often this was one of her wedding shoes, a natural choice given the lucky connotations of shoes in this context. Many carefully preserved satin slippers remain with notes inscribed in the instep attesting to the wearer’s wedding.” (Reeves-Brown)

Not unlike today, these fashion plates presented idealized versions of wedding gowns. The actual gowns that brides wore were often far simpler that the offerings from fashionable magazines. Here are a few pictures from the Met Museum of actual wedding dresses worn in the Regency era.

Images from The MET Museum, Public Domain

Groom’s Attire

Men’s formal attire, not unlike today, was fairly well established, largely due to the influence of Beau Brummell. White shirts of muslin or linen, with a white cravat, ideally in silk. A black or dark cut away, tailed jacket, with buttons left open to show a waistcoat. (Although some period reports note grooms in light colored suits as well.) The waistcoat might be brightly colored and richly embroidered, the one place on a man’s ensemble where bright colors were widely acceptable. Dark or black knee breeches, skin tight of course! Loose fitting trousers were generally not acceptable for a formal occasion until the later part of the regency. Black stockings and black pumps, never boots and a top hat would finish the ensemble.

So are any of these what you imagined the Miss Bennets being married in?

Find References Here!

To Read more articles on weddings, click here.

To read more articles on courtship click here.

To read more articles on marriage click here.

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Courtship and Marriage in Jane Austen’s World, available in ebook and paperback

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