August 24, 2009 • 18 mins
Brides in countries like America and Britain often opt for white dresses, but where did this trend get its start? Discover the origins of white wedding gowns -- and the quirky history of the veil -- in this podcast from HowStuffWorks.com.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the Reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff Mom never told you?
From House Towards dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
This is Molly and I'm Kristen and Kristen. One thing
I love about doing this podcast with you is that
(00:21):
we are constantly learning little backtoys about ourselves that sometimes
we have in common. Despite the fact that you were
homeschooled and I went to regular school, Hey, that doesn't
make me that much different, Molly. I'm just saying, despite
our different backgrounds, despite me being a weirdo and you
being normal, there is common ground. There's common ground. And
today I found just an enchanting thing that Kristen I
(00:42):
have in common, which is that we both had when
we were younger. The Princess Diana paper dolls. Yes, wedding edition. Yes.
My favorite dress on the Princess Diana one an edition
paper dolls was, of course, her enormous gaudy wedding dress
and the bouquet. Yeah. Yeah, So, I mean we were
(01:04):
talking about our our Princess Diana paper dolls this morning,
because we're going to talk about wedding dresses and in preparation,
basically I just sat on Google and google pretty wedding
dresses all morning long. Google image. Yeah, it's not a
bad way to spend a morning. It's actually that's not
actually all the research I did. But it's very um
fitting that we talked about Princess Diana because a lot
(01:25):
of our conceptions of wedding dresses are due to the
royal family. Yes, when we think about the traditionally you know,
white wedding dress. Um, at least in my mind before
I started doing this research, Molly, I just assumed that
brides were white as the symbol of purity and you know,
virgin bride, all of that stuff. But we actually have
(01:47):
Queen Victoria's thank for um just liking the color white
and being a little bit of a trend setter when
she was married in February eighteen forty. It's um thought
of the marker of when women first really started wearing
the white bridal gown. Yeah, at the time, I think
the dress was considered fairly plain, despite the fact that
(02:10):
by all accounts that it was gigantic. But up until
that day, if you were a royal, you were getting
married and like um, silk satin for the most expensive velvet.
Everything had silver thread and it was very r Nate. Um,
I was reading that Actually the brides had to get
so dressed up because the men, the royal men that
we're getting married, were so you know, dapper and wearing
(02:33):
all their finery that you know, brides had to work
pretty hard to like keep up. But you know, the
poor common people who were not royals just pretty much
more whatever color they wanted. Yeah, they have to wear
their Sunday finest, maybe a special holiday dress or something.
They didn't have money to go out and get some
custom made wedding gown, particularly not a white one, because
(02:53):
you know who wears a white dress around other than
attendees at the puff Daddy white party. It's not after
a labor day, Molly. So, I mean before Queen Victoria,
you would wear you know, a gray wedding dress, blue
wedding dress, pastels. There was no rule. And then Queen
Victoria comes along and where's um. This white dress with
(03:14):
orange blossom wreath headdress sounds really pretty. I like it. Yeah,
but Molly, the very first wedding gown, if we're talking
about the history of wedding dresses goes back to fourteen
oh six with the marriage of Philippa, the daughter of
Henry the fourth, and she was wearing one of those
(03:35):
blamed out wedding gowns that you were talking about. She
was covered in velvet and silk sum. For it sounds
a little overdone, but whatever, you know, it was six.
I mean, if you're a princess, can't really anything be overdone,
I'd argue not no um. But back then, blue not white,
was the symbol of purity, and the bride and groom
(03:59):
would actually wear a little band of blue um somewhere
on their bridal costumes, their wedding costumes, uh to symbolize
their their joint purity. And I like that idea that
both the bride and the groom would wear some blue
something in common. Yes, the symbolism of white in weddings
goes back to the Greeks, because Greek brides would wear
(04:20):
white to symbolize joy, and then Roman brides would wear
white to symbolize Hymen, the god of fertility, another celebratory
association with white. It didn't didn't just have to do
with with purity. Yeah, And I think back then they
would just wear white to like parties because they were
so happy. If you're wearing white, you're just saying you're
a happy bride. If you wear a blue, you're saying
(04:42):
a pure brede. But it's not like everyone right after
Victoria set this trend of a big white, poofy dress,
immediately could buy a white dress. Right So, as Kristen said,
Victoria's wedding a big landmark and wedding fashion. And one
more Victoria fact what I want to throw out. Courtesy
of TlCu. Queen Tory was the first bride to have
bride'smaids carry her train, and TLC points out that luckily
(05:05):
all they had to carry is the train because her
wedding cake weighed more than three hundred pounds. Goodness, can
you imagine what if that had set a trend and
everyone had to have a three hundred pound wedding cake.
I wouldn't mind that, that's true. The cake is the
best time I go to weddings. But anyway, the cake
didn't catch on, and neither did her dress wide right away.
(05:25):
I mean her her daughters got married like that, and
the wealthy got married like that. But you know, for
the most part, people still had to get married with
what they could afford to spend. Yeah, like you said,
you can't. A lot of these women couldn't afford to
go get some satin white dress handmade for this one
day that they could never wear again. It had still
had to be something, some kind of dress that they
(05:45):
could wear over and over again. And there was a
tradition after that that that brides could sometimes kind of
had alter their their gown and wear it again for
special occasions. Um. But it really isn't until uh, the
late Victorian era where that kind of goes out of
out of vogue and you really only wear your wedding
(06:06):
gown on on your special day, right, and a special
day did count I read as meeting Queen Victoria. She
loved when people showed up in their white wedding dresses.
Really odd. Yeah, she wasn't vain at all. So anyway,
let's keep going in the Victorian society. Um. And if
you're married in England, you know, in the late eighteen hundreds,
you're getting married in a church, likely in the morning.
(06:27):
There was this log you couldn't get married in the afternoon,
so you're wearing like a nice morning dress that means
like a high neckline, the long sleeve, something appropriate for
a church. Um. And it wasn't until you know that
people could get married in the afternoon that they would
start altering dresses to make them look more evening. Gosh.
And once they could alter them, you know, you could
still pick any color. People were getting married in all
(06:48):
sorts of colors, white included. In the United States. On
the other hand, across the pond, as they say, UM,
white did catch on a little bit quicker, but it
wasn't just for the bride. In Civil War air in
the United States, both the bride and the bridesmaids were
white and all white wedding. It sounds like a major
wedding faux pa. It does today, But as we're learning,
(07:09):
white is not this cherished sacred color. No, it's just
the symbol of joy. So moving on in the American
history of of wedding dresses during the Depression, UM, it's
kind of interesting that this idea of wedding dress becomes
more of a luxury item, renamed the bridal gown. Yes,
(07:31):
that's the first time we see that term use. And
this is despite the fact that, as Kristen says, the
depression is going on. No one has any money, and
yet bridle gowns stayed very or nate an extravagant, despite
the fact that in most other times during history, the
wedding gown fashion kind of follows the fashion of the day.
I mean, you think about like a seventies wedding, you'd
wear like, you know, a mini, just like you would
(07:52):
wear to go shopping wherever you wore your minis. Yeah,
I mean the in the in the same way like
flapper dresses in the twenties would be also reflected in
the style of the wedding dress. So those kind of
silhouett's changed with just general women's fashion. Um. One thing
that I loved about the history of bridal gowns in
the US was during World War Two, since uh, you'd
(08:15):
have to marry soldiers on short notice while they're on
furlough and things like that, kind of these quickly planned weddings,
you had more casual style UM of wedding gown come
into vogue. And they had an excess of parachute silk
from from the war and after World War Two, and
(08:38):
there was this surge in weddings when all the g
i s were coming home. You had a lot more
women wearing gowns made out of parachute silk. I thought
was so cool. That is cool, and it is the
only time, when you think about the other thing made
out of parachute parachute pants pants, the only time parachutes
have really been fashionable, not wedding appropriate parachute pants. But
(08:58):
think how fun like a pair of shoot dressed with
bet because you could like jump off a high thing
and like your skirt with like float. I'm imagining your
wedding right now, Molly, and I want an invitation, okay, um,
so anyway, keep moving on now. I can't focus because
I'm thinking about my parachute extreme bungee jumping wedding. Well today, Molly.
(09:19):
The average cost of a gown parachute or not dollars.
That's according to the Bridal Association of America. I mean,
obviously you can find cheaper gowns. You can go way
more expensive than that, but fills is the average is
the average mark and that's a lot, especially for a
(09:40):
gown that we're only going to wear it once because
we have Queen Victoria. Think for now, you know us
wearing white, which isn't exactly the best color to wear.
Many times and then this whole idea of the wedding
gown becoming this one time luxury good and it's like,
you know, there's this whole wedding industry but on the
built on the fact that it's your day to be
a princess and thing like princess die and this whole
(10:01):
you know, tradition from Queen Victoria do not help that conception. Basically,
we're reading that women always kind of follow the royals
of the day. But um, I think it would be
kind of fun to talk about the wedding attire typical
wedding attire for other countries outside of the US and England,
because I think myself that that China's got something going
(10:24):
on with their wedding gowns. They typically wear red, bright
red and yellow wedding gowns, which I love because that's
their symbol of good luck, right, and you get lots
of intricate embroidery with a dragon and a phoenix and
this detail I also loved. Um, you know, maybe you
can't pick between like two dresses, you look great in both.
(10:45):
In China, Chinese brides by as many dresses as their
budgets allow. It's a way to show wealth costume changes
not a bad idea. And then in Morocco, um you
will have a lot of yellow weddings to scare away
the evil eye, and green weddings for good luck, which
is odd. I mean, this is how you know things
get convoluted. I was finding this poem about which colors
(11:06):
you should wear for your wedding, and while in Morocco
these are good colors for our wedding, this poem that
I'm going to read that's just become part of like
bridal folklore, says that these colors are actually wrong. Are
you ready for a little poetry reading? Please do? Married
and white you have chosen all right, married and green.
Ashamed to be seen married and red, you will wish
(11:28):
yourself dead. Married and blue you will always be true,
married and yellow, ashamed of your fellow Married and black,
you will wish yourself back, married and pink of you.
He'll think, oh, so pink bread, so adorable, not bad.
So I mean, you know you've got this one poem
telling ladies not to wear their green and yellow and red.
(11:48):
But if you go to these other countries, it's it's
perfectly fine. Well, in Allly, I was doing a little
research on contemporary etiquette with the bridal gown colors, and
you know what, we can now wear whatever color we
one talk about choice, Yeah, I mean you think you're
just let me sit to white? Now you got the
whole rainbow. Yeah, because I mean, if you think you
(12:08):
need to to wear white, you know, to symbolize your
your your purity as abroad, you might you might want
to go with blue because you're actually not going to
get that right symbolism with white. Um, maybe maybe Brad
should start handing out like little pamphlets saying why they
chose their dress color guides. Yeah, like that, I mean
(12:28):
the invitation, and then the guests could match their color
to whatever symbol they would like to represent, whether they
would like to bring good luck or board off an
evil eye. That's nice. But you know, now that we've
basically proven that wedding dresses can mean anything you want,
let's talk about one more thing, which which actually has
sort of a weird history. The veil. Yes, the veil
(12:51):
is really where we get the symbolism of bridal purity, right, Molly, Yes,
and it's also a symbol of protection. Is I don't
know what this actually happened but there's this thinking that brides,
once they put on their wedding dress, we're gonna be
so beautiful that everyone was going to want to take
them away and make them make them theirs forever. Yeah,
(13:11):
And according to snopes dot com, veils were originally worn
to shield the you know, pastors by from the bride's
beauty or else she might she was at risk of
being snatched away before she got to walk down the aisle. Interestingly,
to me, it's not just to protect the bride from
other people, it's also to protect her from herself because
I guess, um, you know, if you follow that train
(13:34):
of thinking that if the bride sees herself in the
mirror fully dressed for her wedding, she'll just be captivated
and not make it to the church in time. So
there's this superstition that you're not supposed to put on
your full bridal costume until the moment before the wedding.
So if you're getting dressed in like, you know, the store,
trying on the bridal dress and whatnot, don't put on
the dress and the veil together, bad luck. Apparently, else
(13:55):
she might never leave the bridle Gowns superstore outlet of course,
not because it's your wedding. Because they've got those nice
three way mirrors. You'll just be stuck looking at mirrors
all day. Sounds like this whole idea of the quote
unquote bribe Zilla might go back a bit longer than
we thought. Yeah, it's it's certainly not modern society's fault.
You know, it's just off the hook for that one.
(14:18):
It's just Queen Victoria. Yeah and her three pound cake. Yeah, alright,
so we answered our question why brides wear white? Because
a fashion? Because a fashion, just like those things. Yeah, Royals, Um,
we need another royal wedding, Kristen, Yes we do. Maybe
you can marry Prince William. There any single Royals out there,
(14:39):
you know? I mean you can can always email us
at Mom's Stuff and also at works dot com if
you if you need a lady speaking of people who
email us at Mom's stuff at house stuff works dot com.
Want you a listener mail? Yes, okay, it's not from
any Royals today that I know. It's okay, we can
we can take some call her listener mail. These people
(15:02):
are anything but common, Kristen. Today, I want to read
an email from Shannon about our online Dating podcast, and
she wrote that she found it interesting when we were
discussing in the habit of people seeing something distaceful about
someone and just pretty much writing them off immediately. So
she wrote that, you know, when she set up a profile,
she was very specific about what she was looking for.
(15:22):
She wanted someone who was older, already established in a job,
maybe owned his own home, goal oriented, and just really motivated.
So then this guy comes along who's not any of
those things. He had just built out of college. He
did later go back and get a degree. Um, he
didn't have a job, he lived with his friends, and
he was two and a half years younger than her.
Does that mean any of the qualifications, Kristen, No, it
(15:43):
didn't none. But so she wasn't interested, but she was
intrigued because this guy knew that he didn't meet the
qualifications and decided to try it anyway. And it's They
emailed back and forth for a few weeks, talked on
the phone, then met and guess what what, a year
and a half later they were married. Congratulations, Shannon. And
(16:03):
we have gotten just tons of stories like that, these
success stories of people who have met through online dating. Yeah,
so keep them coming because they're very inspirational. Yeah, so
far we haven't gotten any horror stories that I remember,
just just success stories. So if you want to say
it's a horror story that would be funny to read to, Uh,
you want to do a book list, Kristen, sure, And
I will say. We're getting lots of mail from people
who are like, this isn't summer anymore. This isn't a
(16:24):
summer reading list right now. We're just going with any
books you're reading I want to tell us about. Yeah,
maybe we'll think of something fresh and new for for
fall and winter for you guys to send us in
the meantime. But until we until we do that, I
have this book list from Maria who lives in Pakistan
and she is reading The Tall Book, A Celebration of
Life from on High by Arian Cohen, The Devil's Game
(16:48):
by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, and The Accidental Billionaires by Ben Mezrick.
I apologize for any author mispronunciations to correct. That's why
printing that went out a sentence you could try and
pronounce this office why you passed it on to me,
thank you very much. And last but not least, this
is not listener mail, but I do have to get
a mom's sub. Shout out to Toby in Chicago, a
(17:12):
podcast fan who I randomly met, Hello Toby, thanks for
listening stuff. That's all we got. That's all we got
except for If you guys want to check out what
we're doing during the week, you should head over to
our blogs called how to Stuff and you can find
that and other articles for your reading pleasure, all at
(17:36):
how stuff works dot com For more on this and
thousands of other topics. Because it how stuff works dot com.
Want more house stuff works, check out our blogs on
the house stuff works dot com home page. Brought to
you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray. It's ready,
(17:59):
are you
Brought to you by the Reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff Mom never told you?
From House Towards dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
This is Molly and I'm Kristen and Kristen. One thing
I love about doing this podcast with you is that
(00:21):
we are constantly learning little backtoys about ourselves that sometimes
we have in common. Despite the fact that you were
homeschooled and I went to regular school, Hey, that doesn't
make me that much different, Molly. I'm just saying, despite
our different backgrounds, despite me being a weirdo and you
being normal, there is common ground. There's common ground. And
today I found just an enchanting thing that Kristen I
(00:42):
have in common, which is that we both had when
we were younger. The Princess Diana paper dolls. Yes, wedding edition. Yes.
My favorite dress on the Princess Diana one an edition
paper dolls was, of course, her enormous gaudy wedding dress
and the bouquet. Yeah. Yeah, So, I mean we were
(01:04):
talking about our our Princess Diana paper dolls this morning,
because we're going to talk about wedding dresses and in preparation,
basically I just sat on Google and google pretty wedding
dresses all morning long. Google image. Yeah, it's not a
bad way to spend a morning. It's actually that's not
actually all the research I did. But it's very um
fitting that we talked about Princess Diana because a lot
(01:25):
of our conceptions of wedding dresses are due to the
royal family. Yes, when we think about the traditionally you know,
white wedding dress. Um, at least in my mind before
I started doing this research, Molly, I just assumed that
brides were white as the symbol of purity and you know,
virgin bride, all of that stuff. But we actually have
(01:47):
Queen Victoria's thank for um just liking the color white
and being a little bit of a trend setter when
she was married in February eighteen forty. It's um thought
of the marker of when women first really started wearing
the white bridal gown. Yeah, at the time, I think
the dress was considered fairly plain, despite the fact that
(02:10):
by all accounts that it was gigantic. But up until
that day, if you were a royal, you were getting
married and like um, silk satin for the most expensive velvet.
Everything had silver thread and it was very r Nate. Um,
I was reading that Actually the brides had to get
so dressed up because the men, the royal men that
we're getting married, were so you know, dapper and wearing
(02:33):
all their finery that you know, brides had to work
pretty hard to like keep up. But you know, the
poor common people who were not royals just pretty much
more whatever color they wanted. Yeah, they have to wear
their Sunday finest, maybe a special holiday dress or something.
They didn't have money to go out and get some
custom made wedding gown, particularly not a white one, because
(02:53):
you know who wears a white dress around other than
attendees at the puff Daddy white party. It's not after
a labor day, Molly. So, I mean before Queen Victoria,
you would wear you know, a gray wedding dress, blue
wedding dress, pastels. There was no rule. And then Queen
Victoria comes along and where's um. This white dress with
(03:14):
orange blossom wreath headdress sounds really pretty. I like it. Yeah,
but Molly, the very first wedding gown, if we're talking
about the history of wedding dresses goes back to fourteen
oh six with the marriage of Philippa, the daughter of
Henry the fourth, and she was wearing one of those
(03:35):
blamed out wedding gowns that you were talking about. She
was covered in velvet and silk sum. For it sounds
a little overdone, but whatever, you know, it was six.
I mean, if you're a princess, can't really anything be overdone,
I'd argue not no um. But back then, blue not white,
was the symbol of purity, and the bride and groom
(03:59):
would actually wear a little band of blue um somewhere
on their bridal costumes, their wedding costumes, uh to symbolize
their their joint purity. And I like that idea that
both the bride and the groom would wear some blue
something in common. Yes, the symbolism of white in weddings
goes back to the Greeks, because Greek brides would wear
(04:20):
white to symbolize joy, and then Roman brides would wear
white to symbolize Hymen, the god of fertility, another celebratory
association with white. It didn't didn't just have to do
with with purity. Yeah, And I think back then they
would just wear white to like parties because they were
so happy. If you're wearing white, you're just saying you're
a happy bride. If you wear a blue, you're saying
(04:42):
a pure brede. But it's not like everyone right after
Victoria set this trend of a big white, poofy dress,
immediately could buy a white dress. Right So, as Kristen said,
Victoria's wedding a big landmark and wedding fashion. And one
more Victoria fact what I want to throw out. Courtesy
of TlCu. Queen Tory was the first bride to have
bride'smaids carry her train, and TLC points out that luckily
(05:05):
all they had to carry is the train because her
wedding cake weighed more than three hundred pounds. Goodness, can
you imagine what if that had set a trend and
everyone had to have a three hundred pound wedding cake.
I wouldn't mind that, that's true. The cake is the
best time I go to weddings. But anyway, the cake
didn't catch on, and neither did her dress wide right away.
(05:25):
I mean her her daughters got married like that, and
the wealthy got married like that. But you know, for
the most part, people still had to get married with
what they could afford to spend. Yeah, like you said,
you can't. A lot of these women couldn't afford to
go get some satin white dress handmade for this one
day that they could never wear again. It had still
had to be something, some kind of dress that they
(05:45):
could wear over and over again. And there was a
tradition after that that that brides could sometimes kind of
had alter their their gown and wear it again for
special occasions. Um. But it really isn't until uh, the
late Victorian era where that kind of goes out of
out of vogue and you really only wear your wedding
(06:06):
gown on on your special day, right, and a special
day did count I read as meeting Queen Victoria. She
loved when people showed up in their white wedding dresses.
Really odd. Yeah, she wasn't vain at all. So anyway,
let's keep going in the Victorian society. Um. And if
you're married in England, you know, in the late eighteen hundreds,
you're getting married in a church, likely in the morning.
(06:27):
There was this log you couldn't get married in the afternoon,
so you're wearing like a nice morning dress that means
like a high neckline, the long sleeve, something appropriate for
a church. Um. And it wasn't until you know that
people could get married in the afternoon that they would
start altering dresses to make them look more evening. Gosh.
And once they could alter them, you know, you could
still pick any color. People were getting married in all
(06:48):
sorts of colors, white included. In the United States. On
the other hand, across the pond, as they say, UM,
white did catch on a little bit quicker, but it
wasn't just for the bride. In Civil War air in
the United States, both the bride and the bridesmaids were
white and all white wedding. It sounds like a major
wedding faux pa. It does today, But as we're learning,
(07:09):
white is not this cherished sacred color. No, it's just
the symbol of joy. So moving on in the American
history of of wedding dresses during the Depression, UM, it's
kind of interesting that this idea of wedding dress becomes
more of a luxury item, renamed the bridal gown. Yes,
(07:31):
that's the first time we see that term use. And
this is despite the fact that, as Kristen says, the
depression is going on. No one has any money, and
yet bridle gowns stayed very or nate an extravagant, despite
the fact that in most other times during history, the
wedding gown fashion kind of follows the fashion of the day.
I mean, you think about like a seventies wedding, you'd
wear like, you know, a mini, just like you would
(07:52):
wear to go shopping wherever you wore your minis. Yeah,
I mean the in the in the same way like
flapper dresses in the twenties would be also reflected in
the style of the wedding dress. So those kind of
silhouett's changed with just general women's fashion. Um. One thing
that I loved about the history of bridal gowns in
the US was during World War Two, since uh, you'd
(08:15):
have to marry soldiers on short notice while they're on
furlough and things like that, kind of these quickly planned weddings,
you had more casual style UM of wedding gown come
into vogue. And they had an excess of parachute silk
from from the war and after World War Two, and
(08:38):
there was this surge in weddings when all the g
i s were coming home. You had a lot more
women wearing gowns made out of parachute silk. I thought
was so cool. That is cool, and it is the
only time, when you think about the other thing made
out of parachute parachute pants pants, the only time parachutes
have really been fashionable, not wedding appropriate parachute pants. But
(08:58):
think how fun like a pair of shoot dressed with
bet because you could like jump off a high thing
and like your skirt with like float. I'm imagining your
wedding right now, Molly, and I want an invitation, okay, um,
so anyway, keep moving on now. I can't focus because
I'm thinking about my parachute extreme bungee jumping wedding. Well today, Molly.
(09:19):
The average cost of a gown parachute or not dollars.
That's according to the Bridal Association of America. I mean,
obviously you can find cheaper gowns. You can go way
more expensive than that, but fills is the average is
the average mark and that's a lot, especially for a
(09:40):
gown that we're only going to wear it once because
we have Queen Victoria. Think for now, you know us
wearing white, which isn't exactly the best color to wear.
Many times and then this whole idea of the wedding
gown becoming this one time luxury good and it's like,
you know, there's this whole wedding industry but on the
built on the fact that it's your day to be
a princess and thing like princess die and this whole
(10:01):
you know, tradition from Queen Victoria do not help that conception. Basically,
we're reading that women always kind of follow the royals
of the day. But um, I think it would be
kind of fun to talk about the wedding attire typical
wedding attire for other countries outside of the US and England,
because I think myself that that China's got something going
(10:24):
on with their wedding gowns. They typically wear red, bright
red and yellow wedding gowns, which I love because that's
their symbol of good luck, right, and you get lots
of intricate embroidery with a dragon and a phoenix and
this detail I also loved. Um, you know, maybe you
can't pick between like two dresses, you look great in both.
(10:45):
In China, Chinese brides by as many dresses as their
budgets allow. It's a way to show wealth costume changes
not a bad idea. And then in Morocco, um you
will have a lot of yellow weddings to scare away
the evil eye, and green weddings for good luck, which
is odd. I mean, this is how you know things
get convoluted. I was finding this poem about which colors
(11:06):
you should wear for your wedding, and while in Morocco
these are good colors for our wedding, this poem that
I'm going to read that's just become part of like
bridal folklore, says that these colors are actually wrong. Are
you ready for a little poetry reading? Please do? Married
and white you have chosen all right, married and green.
Ashamed to be seen married and red, you will wish
(11:28):
yourself dead. Married and blue you will always be true,
married and yellow, ashamed of your fellow Married and black,
you will wish yourself back, married and pink of you.
He'll think, oh, so pink bread, so adorable, not bad.
So I mean, you know you've got this one poem
telling ladies not to wear their green and yellow and red.
(11:48):
But if you go to these other countries, it's it's
perfectly fine. Well, in Allly, I was doing a little
research on contemporary etiquette with the bridal gown colors, and
you know what, we can now wear whatever color we
one talk about choice, Yeah, I mean you think you're
just let me sit to white? Now you got the
whole rainbow. Yeah, because I mean, if you think you
(12:08):
need to to wear white, you know, to symbolize your
your your purity as abroad, you might you might want
to go with blue because you're actually not going to
get that right symbolism with white. Um, maybe maybe Brad
should start handing out like little pamphlets saying why they
chose their dress color guides. Yeah, like that, I mean
(12:28):
the invitation, and then the guests could match their color
to whatever symbol they would like to represent, whether they
would like to bring good luck or board off an
evil eye. That's nice. But you know, now that we've
basically proven that wedding dresses can mean anything you want,
let's talk about one more thing, which which actually has
sort of a weird history. The veil. Yes, the veil
(12:51):
is really where we get the symbolism of bridal purity, right, Molly, Yes,
and it's also a symbol of protection. Is I don't
know what this actually happened but there's this thinking that brides,
once they put on their wedding dress, we're gonna be
so beautiful that everyone was going to want to take
them away and make them make them theirs forever. Yeah,
(13:11):
And according to snopes dot com, veils were originally worn
to shield the you know, pastors by from the bride's
beauty or else she might she was at risk of
being snatched away before she got to walk down the aisle. Interestingly,
to me, it's not just to protect the bride from
other people, it's also to protect her from herself because
I guess, um, you know, if you follow that train
(13:34):
of thinking that if the bride sees herself in the
mirror fully dressed for her wedding, she'll just be captivated
and not make it to the church in time. So
there's this superstition that you're not supposed to put on
your full bridal costume until the moment before the wedding.
So if you're getting dressed in like, you know, the store,
trying on the bridal dress and whatnot, don't put on
the dress and the veil together, bad luck. Apparently, else
(13:55):
she might never leave the bridle Gowns superstore outlet of course,
not because it's your wedding. Because they've got those nice
three way mirrors. You'll just be stuck looking at mirrors
all day. Sounds like this whole idea of the quote
unquote bribe Zilla might go back a bit longer than
we thought. Yeah, it's it's certainly not modern society's fault.
You know, it's just off the hook for that one.
(14:18):
It's just Queen Victoria. Yeah and her three pound cake. Yeah, alright,
so we answered our question why brides wear white? Because
a fashion? Because a fashion, just like those things. Yeah, Royals, Um,
we need another royal wedding, Kristen, Yes we do. Maybe
you can marry Prince William. There any single Royals out there,
(14:39):
you know? I mean you can can always email us
at Mom's Stuff and also at works dot com if
you if you need a lady speaking of people who
email us at Mom's stuff at house stuff works dot com.
Want you a listener mail? Yes, okay, it's not from
any Royals today that I know. It's okay, we can
we can take some call her listener mail. These people
(15:02):
are anything but common, Kristen. Today, I want to read
an email from Shannon about our online Dating podcast, and
she wrote that she found it interesting when we were
discussing in the habit of people seeing something distaceful about
someone and just pretty much writing them off immediately. So
she wrote that, you know, when she set up a profile,
she was very specific about what she was looking for.
(15:22):
She wanted someone who was older, already established in a job,
maybe owned his own home, goal oriented, and just really motivated.
So then this guy comes along who's not any of
those things. He had just built out of college. He
did later go back and get a degree. Um, he
didn't have a job, he lived with his friends, and
he was two and a half years younger than her.
Does that mean any of the qualifications, Kristen, No, it
(15:43):
didn't none. But so she wasn't interested, but she was
intrigued because this guy knew that he didn't meet the
qualifications and decided to try it anyway. And it's They
emailed back and forth for a few weeks, talked on
the phone, then met and guess what what, a year
and a half later they were married. Congratulations, Shannon. And
(16:03):
we have gotten just tons of stories like that, these
success stories of people who have met through online dating. Yeah,
so keep them coming because they're very inspirational. Yeah, so
far we haven't gotten any horror stories that I remember,
just just success stories. So if you want to say
it's a horror story that would be funny to read to, Uh,
you want to do a book list, Kristen, sure, And
I will say. We're getting lots of mail from people
who are like, this isn't summer anymore. This isn't a
(16:24):
summer reading list right now. We're just going with any
books you're reading I want to tell us about. Yeah,
maybe we'll think of something fresh and new for for
fall and winter for you guys to send us in
the meantime. But until we until we do that, I
have this book list from Maria who lives in Pakistan
and she is reading The Tall Book, A Celebration of
Life from on High by Arian Cohen, The Devil's Game
(16:48):
by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, and The Accidental Billionaires by Ben Mezrick.
I apologize for any author mispronunciations to correct. That's why
printing that went out a sentence you could try and
pronounce this office why you passed it on to me,
thank you very much. And last but not least, this
is not listener mail, but I do have to get
a mom's sub. Shout out to Toby in Chicago, a
(17:12):
podcast fan who I randomly met, Hello Toby, thanks for
listening stuff. That's all we got. That's all we got
except for If you guys want to check out what
we're doing during the week, you should head over to
our blogs called how to Stuff and you can find
that and other articles for your reading pleasure, all at
(17:36):
how stuff works dot com For more on this and
thousands of other topics. Because it how stuff works dot com.
Want more house stuff works, check out our blogs on
the house stuff works dot com home page. Brought to
you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray. It's ready,
(17:59):
are you
Stuff Mom Never Told You News
Hosts And Creators
Anney Reese
Samantha McVey
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.