Si­mone Sant-Ghu­ran

The Vic­to­ri­an era marks the pe­ri­od when Queen Vic­to­ria ruled Britain, from 1837-1901. To date, this has been the longest reign of any British Monarch, and it's easy to see how in­flu­en­tial Queen Vic­to­ria be­came on the art and style of wed­dings.In fact, al­though she was not the first roy­al to wed in white, she seemed to have start­ed the trend of wear­ing white wed­ding dress­es ever since she wore one at her mar­riage to Prince Al­bert in 1840.

Here are some tips for plan­ning a Vic­to­ri­an-themed wed­ding:

D�cor–The Vic­to­ri­an pe­ri­od was char­ac­terised by or­nate and al­most ex­ces­sive dec­o­ra­tion. Brides can copy it by us­ing fab­ric drap­ing, Japan­ese el­e­ments such as Ori­en­tal bro­cade and porce­lain, lace, silk and vel­vet.Cen­tre­piece ta­blescapes can in­clude: an­tique per­fume bot­tles, bead­ed lamp­shades, mir­rored trays, cherubs and an­tique clocks.

Oth­er pop­u­lar de­sign el­e­ments were stained glass, canopies, flo­ral chintz fab­ric, damask pat­terns, wall pa­per, chan­de­liers, needle­point, Gre­cian busts, por­traits and an­i­mal tro­phies.

Colours–The In­dus­tri­al Age hap­pened dur­ing this pe­ri­od, there­fore mut­ed colours like grays and gray-blues were com­mon­ly used on many house­hold walls, so that soot and ash would not show up. Oth­er pop­u­lar colours of this era were: plum, yel­lows, golds, bur­gundy, sage and olive green, along with dusty pinks and laven­ders.

Ac­ces­sories–To evoke the Vic­to­ri­an era ac­ces­sories can in­clude para­sols, lace gloves, large broach­es, feath­er boas and fans. Elab­o­rate hats were al­so worn by Vic­to­ri­an women, par­tic­u­lar­ly to­wards the end of the era. These hats were of­ten large and ex­trav­a­gant, fea­tur­ing flow­ers, rib­bons, plumes and birds.

Fash­ion–Al­most every decade with­in the Vic­to­ri­an era gave rise to style changes for women. Dur­ing the ear­ly 1840s and 1850s, most women wore pet­ti­coats how­ev­er, this soon gave way to crino­lines, which are still used to­day by many brides, to give vol­ume to ball gown-styled wed­ding dress­es.To em­u­late a Vic­to­ri­an bride, mod­ern brides can opt for em­pha­sis on the waist with corsets or slim-waist­ed gowns. Oth­er styles that can be used to por­tray this era are: fuller sleeves, asym­met­ri­cal drap­ing on the skirts, wide or off-the-shoul­der neck­lines, skirts with bus­tles and bodices with frills (which were pop­u­lar to­ward the end of the era). Men's fash­ion fea­tured the use of top hats, bowler hats, three-piece suits, waist­coats, cum­mer­bunds and wide ties. To­wards the end of the Vic­to­ri­an era, the blaz­er and the tuxe­do were al­so fash­ion­able for men.

Sta­tionery–In your in­vi­ta­tions and pro­grammes, per­haps you can use quotes from po­ets and writ­ers from the Vic­to­ri­an era, some of the more pop­u­lar ones were: Charles Dick­ens, Emi­ly Bronte, Lewis Car­roll, Al­fred, Lord Ten­nyson (Robert Brown­ing, Eliz­a­beth Bar­rett Brown­ing, Christi­na Ros­set­ti and Rud­yard Kipling.

For more Vic­to­ri­an-themed in­spi­ra­tion, please fol­low my Pin­ter­est Board at this link: pin­ter­est.com/trinidad­wed­ding/vic­to­ri­an-themed-wed­ding/ or join me on Face­book at face­book.com/trinidad­wed­dings