Wedding Ideas With A Victorian Twist

When it comes to wedding ideas, there are many new trends to choose from. Wedding ideas are currently becoming more out of the box making it more memorable, such as a choreographed dance down the aisle. Yet at the same time as new wedding ideas grow, so does the thirst for the traditional, such as a Victorian wedding.

A Victorian wedding brings back a sense of elegance and timeless beauty. Some people think that the Victorian style wedding is returning because older styles are coming back into style. There may be some truth to that as going back to a style due to this generation desiring the embodiment of what the Victorian era weddings stood for such as good manners, civility, beauty, style and grace. If you feel that you want that graceful wedding, where etiquette and beauty are at the fore front, then a Victorian wedding is the right fit for you.

Photography- Weddings

One of the key details for any wedding, especially a Victorian style, is your photographer. They have the ability to take your photos, not only in color, but can take any photo you want and give it that Victorian touch by changing it to either black and white or sepia (a brownish tint).

Flower Bouquets

Back in the Victorian lifestyle flowers played a very important role in their weddings as well as their gardens as you can see in the paintings from this era. Therefore a great Victorian wedding idea would to have your wedding in a beautiful garden, arboretum or perhaps a friend or family member’s backyard. One of the most important flowers in a Victorian bride’s bouquet was a rose. Brides would select the flowers and their colors depending on its meaning. For example:

Lavender: Love at first sight
Pink: Admiration and Joy
Red: Romance and Love
Orange: Desire
Yellow: Friendship and Happiness
White: Purity and Innocence

With the rose as the main flower, they also used peonies, which are edible flowers. They also used forget-me-nots and dill, which at the time was thought to be an aphrodisiac, in which the newly married couple would consume after the wedding. They would also include ivy in their bouquets, which later after the wedding they would plant the ivy their new garden. The Victorian bride’s bouquet could be either very large with cascading flowers or they might choose to have a quaint and small bouquet.

Tussy Mussies

The Tussy Mussie was a very popular type of flower bouquet in the Victorian era. They were small bouquets that included the combination of flowers and herbs. The main use for the tussy mussie in the Victorian era was to use them for their pleasant odor, almost like their own type of air freshener due to the fact that back in that time the city was not the most pleasant smelling place in the world. Not only was it common for a lot of people to not find bathing a high priority, it was common for people to dump their chamber pots in the city streets. However what was once used as an air freshener turned into a symbolic gift that would be given to friends or used by new suitors.

The flowers in the tussy mussie would be selected for its specific meaning for the person who was receiving it. A silver tussy mussie holder were common as bridesmaids gifts and each bridesmaids bouquet would be a bit different from each other due to the meaning of the flowers and how the bride felt about each bridesmaid. It was not uncommon then for the bride to have only two bridesmaids.

You may think a Victorian wedding would be an expensive event, but that is not necessarily true. If you are on a budget this is the perfect wedding style for you. You can go to thrift stores and antique shops to find interesting decorations. Borrow things from people that have items with a Victorian look and ask friends and relatives who are advanced in age for ideas for your wedding.

To the Victorian bride this was one of the most important days in her life and they made the best with what they had, regardless if you were on a high or low budget. Either way there is no way your Victorian style wedding won’t be the wedding of your dreams as long as you enjoy it and put your special touch on it. After all the most important part of the wedding is the love that you and your partner share.