Wearing white on your wedding day – whether that is ivory, eggshell or cream – has been a steadfast tradition since Queen Victoria first popularised it in the 19th century. Yet today, more and more modern brides are choosing to go for something more colourful. According to statistics, 15 per cent of brides are now opting for a non-white wedding dress, a figure that has steadily increased in the last decade. A-listers, too, have been leading the charge, with Gwen Stefani, Anne Hathaway and Chloë Grace Moretz all notably wearing coloured wedding dresses, while social-media platforms, like Instagram and Pinterest, inevitably give brides-to-be access to a wealth of inspiration that was just not available before.
But with a big, white dress being the key marker of a bride, can you still feel like it’s your wedding day when you’re wearing something else? The short answer, of course, is yes. For many brides, choosing to wear a non-white dress is down to a desire to feel like themselves on their big day, with personal style informing so much of our identity today.
The designer Amy Anderson of Kindred of Ireland has seen an uptick in the amount of brides coming to her for custom colourful dresses. “It came quite naturally from the kind of bride we were already attracting,” she explains. “She was often a little more relaxed, independent and less bound by bridal tradition. Colour became part of that conversation because it allowed bridal to feel more personal, expressive and wearable. For many of our brides, especially those having smaller or more intimate weddings, there is less desire to dress for a bridal ideal and more desire to wear something beautiful that reflects their real style.”
One of Anderson’s recent brides was Jess Murray, who wore a bright pink dress, paying homage to her own mum who wore green to get married in the ’70s. “When my mum got married in green, it was quite radical and apparently drew a bit of disapproval, so I loved that sense of doing things in your own way,” she explains. “That gave me confidence to choose something that felt true to me rather than following a set expectation.”
The broader trend towards more personalised, less prescriptively traditional weddings is another reason why many brides eschew the big white dress in favour of something simpler. “Nothing about our wedding was traditional because neither of us wanted a big wedding and we both hate being the centre of attention, so we kept it super small,” shares Charlotte McCaughan-Hawes. “This meant it was quite casual compared to a traditional one with all the various elements you feel you have to incorporate, such as the big white dress. I wore a pale pink Simone Rocha dress with orange floral embroidery that I fell in love with at a sample sale – it was utterly perfect for our day.”
Multi-cultural weddings that celebrate different heritages are also more common today, which means that for many brides, colourful dresses are a way to acknowledge their own or their husband’s culture separate from the western tradition. Such was the case for Elizabeth Bennett, who chose a pink sari and then a bright yellow Queens of Archive dress for her wedding to Saurabh Sathyashankar in India. “I had never really dreamed of a big white wedding to be honest,” she shares. “Looking back, I think this was partly because my parents didn’t have a traditional wedding – they were married after I was born and my mum wore a blue floral dress rather than traditional white. I love colour and often wear bold colours in my day-to-day life, and I just thought I would feel more myself in a fun colour.”
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For others, especially those who love fashion, their wedding is an opportunity to really have fun with it – which can open them up to non-white options. Diana Ross in a fluffy orange-red dress, Winona Ryder in pastel Chanel sequins and Samantha from Bewitched in a Paco Rabanne-style silver dress were all on Ana Coccioletti’s bridal moodboard. “There are few moments where I’ve had a good excuse or occasion to wear a big, fluffy, amazing dress, and as I tried things on, the pieces that sparked the most joy for me were colourful,” she shares. “I kept returning to the final pink and red dress from the spring/summer 2021 Molly Goddard show and was determined to track it down – when it arrived, it was even more perfect in real life!”
Many brides are also choosing colourful dresses for vow renewals, or as part of a multi-day ceremony. Morgane Richer La Fleche wore Molly Goddard’s autumn/winter 2020 Gillian dress in peach for her vow renewal at the Little White Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas. “We were actually married at city hall in a blizzard, and I felt I missed my chance to wear something fabulous,” she says. “Since we had been married a few years already, I wanted something extravagant that didn’t look bridal. I knew there would be a pink Cadillac and an Elvis impersonator, and the dress had to match that energy.”
Of course, another key benefit of wearing something less overtly bridal is that it can be reworn, a major coup for anyone who cares about the environmental impact. “The fact that I can rewear it was definitely part of the appeal,” shares Murray. “I loved the idea of choosing something I would love beyond the wedding day, rather than something that only made sense once. That was part of why going for a colourful dress felt so right: it felt more like an extension of my own style, and something I could imagine wearing again in some form.”