Although the book covers such iconic examples as Grace Kelly, Jacqueline Kennedy and Beatle wife Pattie Boyd, I would perhaps hope that it would first fall open on pages covering the choices of ordinary women who had to be inventive to be fashionable. A favourite example can be found on page 61, where a glamorous fashion plate is compared with a far more modest, unadorned silk dress, both from 1829. Attractive but frugal alternatives to ornate lace, such as net and gauze, are shown on the latter example, and the fashion plate displays the elaborate hairstyles and evening dress influences that wealthier brides would aim to incorporate. Page 103 also uses fashion plates as comparisons, but the star of this analysis is a simple cotton floral princess-line dress from the early 1880s. This is a prime example of the type of bridal gown that most women could afford, and emphasises the commonality of not choosing silk or satin. One fashionable magazine even observed in 1881 that: “There is a latent desire to improve the present state of things. One gentleman...not being in affluent circumstances, insisted that his daughter...united to a rich bridegroom, should wear nothing more than a cotton dress.”

I’m especially glad that I had the chance to feature dresses with less glamorous backstories, even tragic ones, in order to fully view the world of the bridal gown from all perspectives. A pertinent example is found on page 74 with the wedding dress of Sarah Tate, an enslaved woman in Texas during the 1840s. Tate, who was eventually emancipated in 1865, is said to have treasured the dress, which was made for her by her previous mistress Selah Edgar. Although marriages between enslaved couples were not legally recognised and often not supported by slaveholders, there seems to have been some encouragement from the Edgars —even in the face of strict antebellum laws. This is supported by the fact that the dress was made from homespun cotton rather than the coarse cloth usually worn by slaves. 

Another dark period in history is represented through the wedding dress on page 151, worn by Alice Lubranitsky in 1936. Five years later Lubranitsky and her husband were murdered at the Riga ghetto, never achieving their dream of emigrating to New York. I was able to expand on the information provided by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum by searching the now-digitised German publication Judische Rundschau to find details of the wedding’s date and location. These two examples indicate the kind of variety I was really keen to include, showing the diversity of circumstance and experience across three centuries of bridalwear. 

It has always been important to me that my work is accessible, and that the images can speak for themselves alongside my annotations. Accessibility and relatability are key in the wake of the phenomenally successful Say Yes to the Dress (TLC) which, since its inception in 2007, precipitated wedding dress fever. In addition to being relatable subject matter, I hope the dresses on view will raise associations and incite curiosity in a reader to explore more: not just across the history of bridalwear, but across material culture more broadly, because the connections and relevance of this topic are infinite. To make that happen, the process of choosing suitable dresses was lengthy and complex—a kind of curation – and involved working closely with different types of institutions. Some of the images in the book are from my own garment collection and have never been published before; others are from lesser-known museums and tell more niche stories. These are just as important and relevant as the examples stemming from famous collections and collectors, and I feel privileged to be able to bring some of these to light and place them within a broader discussion. Regrettably – but inevitably –  there were so many pieces that could not be included, but I hope that the ones shown will encourage readers to find further examples and create their own library of favourite wedding dresses across time. 

I hope this approach will enable, simultaneously, a less prescriptive and stereotypical view of the history of bridal fashions, and dispel some common myths on the subject. By the end of the book, I am optimistic that readers will start to view bridalwear as multifaceted and limitless in the twenty-first century. It is becoming a far less gendered construct and the implications of this are exciting, evidenced through the work of new designers, featured in the book, who are pushing boundaries and subverting expectations.