On 10th February 1840 Queen Victoria made fashion history when she married her first cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha at the Chapel Royal at St James’s Palace in London. Like all weddings, there was much speculation over what the bride would be wearing. As the Head of State, it was suggested that Queen Victoria get married in her Robes of State. However, Victoria was determined that on her wedding day she would be like any other ordinary woman and marry the man she loved in a simple, more conventional outfit.
RCIN 71975
At this time in history there were no set traditions over what a bride should wear. Commissioning dresses was an expensive affair, so many brides opted for practical colours (such as brown) and designs that could be worn for other occasions or even daily use. For the richer classes it would have been a similar, yet different, story. With more money and access to richer fabrics and colours, many aristocratic women got married wearing bright colours or even silver and gold, which was particularly common for royal brides. Queen Victoria, on the other hand, opted for a simple and less garish colour for her bridal outfit… white.
Victoria is commonly believed to have been the first person to wear white to her wedding but this fact isn’t true. White had been worn by brides for centuries but its light colour was not only impractical to clean and re-wear, but it was also expensive to produce. As a result, wearing white became a statement of wealth and social standing. With this fact highlighting Victoria’s status as Queen, the connotations of angelic grace and purity made white the perfect colour choice for Victoria on her big day.
Around the late 1830s it had become popular to import fabrics from Europe, which had a detrimental impact on British trades. Fortunately Queen Victoria was passionate about creating work for ordinary people and her wedding seemed like the perfect opportunity to show her support for her struggling subjects.
The dress itself – made by Victoria’s longest-serving dressmaker, Mary Bettans – was made out of Spitalfields silk, which was manufactured in east London. It was a relatively simple design with two parts, a bodice and skirt. Made up of eighteen pieces, the bodice had an open, off-the-shoulder neckline and short puffed sleeves. This has been decorated with a Honiton lace bertha, with trailing lace at the bottom of the sleeve. The base of the bodice goes into a deep v-shaped waistline, which beautifully accented the box pleated bell-skirt. The skirt itself is plain cream satin silk but a detachable flounce of Honiton lace was also worn on the day, along with a six yard train. The pattern for the dress was destroyed upon its completion so that it couldn’t be sold or replicated.
RCIN 2905584
The wedding lace is a particularly poignant part of Victoria’s wedding ensemble. Designed by Scottish artist William Dyce, this historic lace was commissioned between 1838-1839 and went on to be a permanent feature throughout Victoria’s life. While it’s known as Honiton lace, the lace worn by the Queen was made in a nearby Devonshire village called Beer, where 200 lace makers were employed to work on Queen’s lace flounce, bertha and four yard veil. Over the coming years Victoria would continue to commission Honiton lace for herself and her children, including the iconic royal christening gown and the wedding dresses of her daughters and daughters-in-laws.
Victoria continued to wear the wedding lace throughout her lifetime, even after the death of her beloved husband. The events she wore it to included christenings, weddings and in her Diamond jubilee photographs. She also wore it to state events and on her wedding anniversary. In 1885 Queen Victoria allowed her youngest child, Princess Beatrice to wear the iconic wedding lace when she married Prince Henry of Battenberg, making her the only other known person to wear it.
On the day of her wedding Victoria proudly writes in her journal that she ‘wore a white satin gown, with a very deep flounce of Honiton lace, imitation of old. I wore my Turkish diamond necklace and earrings, and my Angel’s beautiful sapphire broach’. While she was Queen of what was to become the most powerful empire in history, as she walked down the aisle Victoria was an ordinary woman, who was marrying the man that she loved (albeit her first cousin). She may have married in St James’s Palace, surrounded by royalty and dignitaries, but she wore no crown of diamonds, just a simple wreath of orange blossoms, which also decorated her white dress and cascaded down the back of her train. No garish colours and no dazzling gems, yet Victoria had created an image of timeless elegance that continues to be at the forefront of weddings almost 190 years later.
Victoria’s wedding dress still survives today and forms part of the Royal Collection. It was last displayed at Kensington Palace in 2012 but is unlikely to be exhibited soon due to its delicate state. The Queen’s wedding lace also survives but has since been deemed too fragile to be removed from storage.
© Queen.Victoria.Roses 2026
Want to be notified about new content? Subscribe to my website to receive email updates!
This article is the intellectual property of Queen.Victoria.Roses and should not be COPIED, EDITED, OR POSTED IN ANY FORM ON ANOTHER WEBSITE under any circumstances unless permission is given by the author
