Wedding Dress Superstition Death

Maybe you have heard of the superstition that a wedding dress means death. Where did that come from? Will this affect your wedding? Is this unlucky? Well I am here to help you understand this crazy tradition.

Does a wedding dress mean death?

No, not in this life. But it has connections. Let me explain. Folklore and traditions from an old bookshop in London caught my eye today - hence why I am writing this. I liked one chapter in particular, about wedding dress stories and legends. I felt a shiver when I read that these symbols for marriage: joy and union also have a connection to death - and of course are hugely associated with death. 

Numerous cultures consider the wedding dress more than just a dress - it's an important symbol. Crazy traditions include the Polish custom of burying a woman who died unmarried in her wedding dress. People who were not married were also buried in their wedding dressed, because it was supposed to be in the afterlife. I know. I can’t believe that this actually happened. This means the superstition of the wedding dress meaning death actually means that people were buried in their dress. It also ran past my mind on if they actually had or bought a wedding dress. What if they didn’t have one?

So, why did this happen? It was because it was believed to be a sort of offering to the unmarried lady to have (a spiritual marriage experience) in the afterlife - see the book Folklore and Symbolisms of Wedding Attire by Mary Ann Patterson - go read it. It sort of says a wedding dress is meant for one of life's best moments and could also be a cover for the afterlife - I am sure you will agree this  is both comforting and upsetting.

Last January I married a really fun and cool guy in a small ceremony at the registry office. Our day was spared the usual wedding faff with just two witnesses and one red spotted dress. But as much as I loved weddings as a little girl - what I wanted, mood boards - and binders full of make-believe wedding plans - I've grown up so much. I feel like that is a great deal of money to spend on something which may not last. Yet here I am still preparing for a more traditional wedding this summer as promised to my sister who has this whole massive wedding planned - 10k dollars worth.

The white wedding dress does not necessarily signify purity. The white dress historically represented wealth and status, said Molly Rottman in the Fashion Studies Journal. Even if the collective assumption links it to virginity, the symbolism still exerts its power because society thinks so.

This symbolic link to death even goes even further to ancient Rome. Rome's brides wore a tunica recta, or plain white tunic, with a belt inscribed "knot of Hercules" meaning fertility and protection. Yet it was also worn as funeral clothes for young girls who died before marriage - a reminder of life interrupted. The purpose of the tunica recta is described in "Roman Wedding Rituals and Their Meanings" by Professor Marcus Antonius, another book I came across today.

In Victorian England the superstition got even more crazy. Queen Victoria made the white wedding dress super famous in 1840. But Victorian society also practiced Mourning rituals as described in Death and Mourning in Victorian England by Jane Austen (no, not that Jane Austen!). 'The eternal bride' was often buried in her bridal gown if a bride-to-be died before the wedding. These horrible customs show how closely life and death were intertwined then.

Even in Asian cultures, the similarities are crazy. In some parts of China, white means death and the afterlife. Chinese brides wear red at weddings as it represents happiness and prosperity. In case a woman died before the wedding, however, wearing a white bridal gown represented a fitting tribute to her sabbatical. This practice is discussed in Colors and Customs in Chinese Traditions by Li Wei, another book I got at the library about this death and wedding fiasco. What really grabs me most in most of these books that I have read is that a wedding dress is spiritually so full of promise and beginnings. For this, I find it a reminder of life's fragility and the cultural attempts to find beauty and meaning in sorrow.

Summary

The whole premise of the wedding dress as a symbol of life and death is kind of beautiful. It makes me wonder how many layers of meaning there are to understand the cycle of life.