Tea at Trianon: Regency Weddings

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Sunday, November 20, 2016

Regency Weddings

From English Historical Fiction Authors:

Fashion plates from Ackerman’s and La Belle Assemblée illustrate gowns used for weddings. All though all these gowns are white, that is more indicative of the white gown being the ‘little black dress’ 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, attested to by the La Belle Assembée dress being cited as both an evening dress and a wedding dress. Finer materials might be utilized if the bride could afford: 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) (Read more.)