Second Thoughts on The Dress

As I hinted earlier, the second major disagreement my daughter and I had was over The Dress. Two sources of contention stood between us and perfect harmony – whether the gown would be strapless or have sleeves, and whether it would include color or not. I was adamant on both counts. Her shoulders must be covered and no color allowed! I cited long-standing traditions requiring modesty and white. My daughter countered with “it’s my wedding.” I replied, “I’m paying for it.” She quipped that I obviously wanted to see her in a white burkha. And ‘round and ‘round we went! What a dilemma!

I felt very strongly about how I wanted my daughter to look on her wedding day, and I’ll get into that another time. Today I want to tell the story of how I changed my mind about adding color.

In an effort to boost my argument in favor of white, I took it upon myself to do some research on weddings and gowns. In our culture the color white is meant to represent innocence and purity when worn by a bride. Sad to say, not many brides these days can honestly wear white, but our daughter could. I wanted to see her walk demurely down the aisle representing everything pure, lovely, sweet, and honorable in a young Christian woman. I looked upon this as a point of pride and a kind of counter-culture rebellion turned upside down. Throughout her life, I’d taken a lot of flak about how I was depriving her, indeed ruining her, by raising her conservatively. Now, I wanted The Dress to be an “in your face” statement of triumphant parenting. I’ll say it right now – I think it’s pretty obvious -- my attitude was all wrong. And, as I discovered through my research, my two biggest arguments in favor of white were flawed.

First, Queen Victoria is commonly given credit for starting the current fashion trend of wearing white when she wore a white gown for her own wedding to Prince Albert in the year 1840. That’s a mere 171 years ago and hardly qualifies as an ancient tradition. Up until then couples had simply worn their very best clothing to the ceremony. Despite the Queen’s example, author Laura Ingalls, who was married to Almanzo Wilder in 1885, writes that for her wedding she “was wearing her new black cashmere dress and her sage-green poke bonnet with the blue lining and the blue ribbon bow tied under her left ear.” She also writes that prior to the wedding her mother commented, “I do not like to think of you being married in black…You know what they say, ‘Married in black, you’ll wish yourself back.’”

While there are many quaint wedding superstitions regarding color, and it would be nice to think that brides thoughtfully and carefully choose colors that are meaningful in some way, a color is ultimately just a color and an entirely subjective choice. Since we are not superstitious people, it was only important to have “good” colors for the purpose of complimenting the bride’s complexion.

Second, as Miss Manners rightly points out, if the main purpose of the color white is to advertise untouched goods then frankly, that's vulgar. I hadn't thought about it that way but she's right. The last thing I really wanted guests thinking about as my daughter floated down the aisle was "Hey, look at the virgin!" Those who know her well know well her virtues. Those who do not know her as well should be noticing how happy she is. Looking at things in this light it not only became permissible to include color in her wedding dress I was actively encouraging it!

In closing then, my advice to mothers-of-brides is this: choose your battles carefully. Planning a wedding can turn into one long contest of wills if we’re not careful. There are many, many insignificant details that can and should be left to the bride without interference, and there are several significant ones in which we may feel compelled to get involved, but we’d do better to step back and take a deep breath first. Do some research. You may find, as I did, that your concerns aren’t as important as you thought they were. In other areas you may feel you need to stand your ground. Under no circumstances, however, should these kinds of choices be allowed to lead to a breach between you and your daughter. The wedding will last one day; your relationship with your daughter will last a lifetime. Keep it a good one.

More on this later…