{Botanical Princess Gowns}

My article, "Botanical Princess Gowns," appears in the winter issue of SEASON magazine...on page 77—and reprinted below. (Plus, it's an excerpt from my book, The End of the Fairy-Tale Bride.) Enjoy!
                               
                             
                         Botanical Princess Gowns                                                   

Flowers, naturally, have always been favored at weddings. And for many British royal brides, even for the bridal gown itself. According to Christopher Warwick in Two Centuries of Royal Weddings, Queen Victoria’s grandmother, Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, wed King George III in 1761 wearing “silver brocade woven with patterns of flowers—some say carnations—in three types of gold thread.”

“Flowers, both real and artificial, made a comeback at mid-19^th century weddings,” explained Marriage à la Mode, and the bouffant crinoline gowns of the time were “positively awash” with trails of either wax orange blossom and myrtle—like Princess Alexandra’s silver tissue gown when she married the Prince of Wales in 1863; or artificial roses and white heather—like the fluffy white silk gown Victoria, the Princess Royal, wore in 1858. Tufts of tulle and lace were often added to the botanical fancy, making these over-the-top dresses pure confections. “Many of these gowns,” Warwick commented, “were so heavily festooned and garlanded with leaves and orange blossom that the wearers tended to resemble a variety of exotic horticultural exhibits rather than wide-eyed brides.”

Toward the end of the 19^th century, when crinolines were gone and hourglass silhouettes were the fashion, the fitted, low-cut gown of Princess May of Teck—the future Queen Mary—seemed, perhaps because of her well-endowed figure, “engineered rather than sewn,” according to historian Ann Monsarrat. However, the gown was notable for its woven fabric loaded with symbolic floral sentiment. The white satin brocade had a silver design interwoven of roses, shamrocks, thistles, orange flowers, heather and true-love knots—as romantic as it was patriotic.

  

Princess Elizabeth’s wedding in 1947, even on a wet and dreary November day, was a shining break from the austerity of the grim post-war years. Her ivory silk satin gown—overflowing with floral motifs—was glamorous, opulent and symbolic. The silkworms used to make the silks both in Scotland and England were brought from Nationalist China instead of “enemy silkworms” from Japan or Italy. Designer Norman Hartnell, inspired by Botticelli’s 15^th century painting Primavera, had the gown and long silk tulle court train intricately hand embroidered with thousands of tiny crystals and seed pearls in garland designs of jasmine, smilax, lilac, and York rose blossoms. (However, even the future queen needed ration coupons for her wedding gown’s fabric, so women from all over the country sent their coupons to their beloved princess. They were politely, and with messages of deep gratitude, returned by the Palace.)

In the spring of 2011, it was the bride of the queen’s grandson, Prince William, who carried on Britain’s floral tradition. Kate Middleton looked regal in a white silk gazar couture gown with lace—handcrafted by artisans at the Royal School of Needlework—in delicate patterns of roses, thistles, daffodils and shamrocks, inspiring a bit of “O! to Be in England” sentiment in all of us! ~

 [This article is an excerpt from my book The End of the Fairy-Tale Bride: For Better or Worse, How Princess Diana Rescued the Great White Wedding.]

{The Crown}

I've just finished watching Season One of "The Crown"—Netflix’ wonderfully royal, big-budget series chronicling the life of Princess, then Queen, Elizabeth. Created and written by the extraordinary Peter Morgan—who knows his way around clever royal dialogue and hidden emotions—the production designs are rich, the acting is superb and the costumes—by the marvelous Michele Clapton (of Game of Thrones fame!)—are beautiful!

One of the famous gowns the costume designer recreates for the first episode of “The Crown” is Princess Elizabeth’s 1947 wedding gown by couturier Norman Hartnell. I write about it in my book The End of the Fairy-Tale Bride: For Better or Worse, How Princess Diana Rescued the Great White Wedding….here’s one book excerpt I thought you’d enjoy:

Although a wet and dreary November day, Princess Elizabeth’s wedding in 1947 was a shining break from the austerity of the grim post-war years. Her ivory silk satin gown was glamorous, opulent and symbolic. The silkworms used to make the silks both in Scotland and England were brought from Nationalist China instead of “enemy silkworms” from Japan or Italy. Designer Norman Hartnell was said to have been inspired by Primavera, Botticelli’s fifteenth-century painting; he had the gown and long silk tulle court train intricately hand embroidered with thousands of tiny crystals and seed pearls in garland designs of jasmine, smilax, lilac, and York rose blossoms. Since Great Britain was still in recovery from World War II, and since even the future queen needed ration coupons for her wedding gown’s fabric, women from all over the country sent their coupons for their much-loved Princess to use. They were politely, and with messages of deep gratitude, returned by the Palace.

 .......................................................

(Order your own copy of The End of the Fairy-Tale Bride and read more about glorious royal wedding gowns!)

{Who's Inside the Dress?}

Dear Bride-to-Be: 
While the royal wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer was being planned and arrangements organized, much of Diana’s attention—like for many brides before and since, royal and otherwise—went to the dress! 

In my wedding articles and books, I ask often brides: What image do you want to remain in the imagination of your guests? It’s not the vision of a lovely woman in a beautiful gown that really inspires. What remains unforgettable and inspiring is when that image is infused with the beauty of an open heart. (Plus, an open heart is the doorway to intimacy!)

Being included in the intimacy of the day is the real gift people take home and feel when they later think about the bride. Perhaps that’s what makes some wedding dresses themselves so memorable: They were chosen with that same open-hearted, soft-focus attention of love.

Be beautiful! Keep your heart open—love and beauty always follow.

Love. Listen. Let go.
....love from Cornelia

[Excerpt from The End of the Fairy-Tale Bride: For Better or Worse, How Princess Diana Rescued the Great White Wedding.]

{Victoria's Choice Redux}

Hello! I thought you’d enjoy a reprint of my article, “Victoria’s Choice”....it’s been published in Season Magazine and on Huffington Post. (Plus it’s an excerpt from my latest book The End of the Fairy-Tale Bride: For Better or Worse, How Princess Diana Rescued the Great White Wedding.)

VICTORIA'S CHOICE

If you know one thing about wedding gown history, I would wager that it has something to do with Queen Victoria beginning the fashion for brides wearing white. (And now, thanks to her, it has been a tradition of sorts for 175 years.) But I would also wager that most people don’t know the real reason the 20-year-old monarch broke the precedent set by earlier royal brides—“dressed in their usual cloths of silver or gold”—and chose the color white for her wedding gown. Victoria even chose a crown of fanciful, yet wax orange blossoms instead of one of her dazzling diamond diadems!

Her choices have been regarded as representing simplicity, modesty and purity—and indeed the young queen was sentimental with an “uncluttered fashion preference,” according to costume historian Kay Staniland. However, Victoria was deeply in love, and this became her guiding inspiration for her wedding attire. Therefore, with much consideration—taking into account her duty, her position and her subjects—“the queen decided to make her marriage vows to her ‘precious Angel’ as his future wife rather than as the monarch,” wrote V & A museum curator Edwina Ehrman. So Victoria not only opted against wearing the ornate silver and gold of royalty, but also her regal “crimson velvet robe of state” feeling “it would only emphasize her seniority, and overshadow the role of her future husband,” Staniland added.

Victoria’s all-white bridal costume may have been without the usual glittering royal accoutrements, but it “was actually exquisite and of great value,” explained Maria McBride-Mellinger, author of The Wedding Dress. Underscoring “patriotic spending,” the queen commissioned her country’s renowned textile artisans. The rich silk satin for the gown and its 18-foot court train was woven in Spitalfields and the beautiful, lyrically-patterned lace for her veil and gown embellishments was hand made by two hundred women in a Devon village employed for eight months. The only color Victoria wore was near her heart: a large, brilliant blue sapphire brooch which had been Prince Albert’s wedding gift to her.

On the day of the wedding, Victoria’s adoring subjects happily received their queen’s choices, cheering her carriage on its way to the Chapel Royal at St. James’s Palace. Dressed in these creamy shades of white and tufts of orange blossom, I doubt that Victoria had a sense of the remarkably romantic lineage she was about to inaugurate. Nor could she ever know that her queenly exemplar: “Keep your relationship top priority,” would make fine advice for today’s busy wedding-planning brides. 

It seems for this young bride (who just happened to be ruler of an empire), that it came down to choosing the feelings of her future husband over her own ego. Victoria’s heart-centered choice changed bridal history and, in turn, illuminated the supreme sovereignty of a woman in love. ~

[Enjoy your own copy of The End of the Fairy-Tale Bride: For Better or Worse, How Princess Diana Rescued the Great White Wedding....easy to order from Amazon with a speedy delivery!] 

{Wedding Vows}

My article “Wedding Vows” just published in the fall issue of SEASON magazine! It shares how Princess Diana’s wedding in 1981 signaled changes in the world of weddings, including the promises a couple makes during their ceremony. (‘Tis based on excerpts from my book, The End of the Fairy-Tale Bride: For Better or Worse, How Princess Diana Rescued the Great White Wedding.) Enjoy!

Wedding Vows

 The bride’s entrance into the majesty of St. Paul’s was announced by a fanfare from trumpeters high inside the cathedral’s celebrated dome. Perhaps they were not only announcing a princess bride, but prophetically heralding in, for better or worse, a new era! Thirty-five years ago Lady Diana Spencer’s charismatic appeal as a bride, combined with the grand splendor of the British monarchy, resurrected the “great white wedding”—helped along with society’s need for order and tradition, a little Reaganomics, plus a dash of glam and glitter!

Or as author Maria McBride-Mellinger described changes following the royal wedding in 1981:  “After a decade of swinging singles and disco infernos, suddenly everyone wanted to be married and every bride wanted a gown fit for a queen: regal and ornate, with a lengthy train, and a jeweled veil. The big white wedding was back in style and no expense seemed too great.”Signaling another change of the times, the bride and groom made royal history that day with a break in tradition even before becoming husband and wife. Removing some outdated words from the Church of England’s 1662 version of the Book of Common Prayer, as the couple stood before the archbishop of Canterbury, and witnessed by nearly a million-fold television audience, the bride’s marriage vows did not include the promise “to obey.”

  

A London byline in The Washington Post a few days before the wedding reported that the archbishop of Canterbury revealed “the decision to drop this vow was made very quickly in his discussion of the service with Charles and Diana and that he told them, the usual clergyman’s joke. ‘It’s a bad thing to start your marriage off with a downright lie.’ He told reporters that many couples now omit the vow, which was a remnant from the Middle Ages, when a wife would pledge ‘to be bonny and buxom in bed and board.’”

I don’t doubt the archbishop’s knowledge of history regarding marriage vows including “to love, cherish and obey.” However, my understanding of the Latin meaning of the word “obey” as used in the old marriage text is “to hear, to deeply listen”—a promise that would be beneficial, even essential, to any marriage, no? If that’s the case, my only complaint with the original marriage vows is that the pledge “to obey” (i.e., “to listen”) was in the woman’s declaration but not in the man’s. Is the promise “to love and cherish” really possible without “deep listening”?

Some wedding “traditions”—royal or otherwise—are indeed outdated and need tossing aside; others are keepers in their own right. Then there are those traditions that simply need the wisdom of a woman’s touch! □

[Excerpt from The End of the Fairy-Tale Bride: For Better or Worse, How Princess Diana Rescued the Great White Wedding]

{The un-Fashion of Weddings}

When I worked at Vogue in the 1970s, you would have never seen a headline in the magazine like these that I’ve recently read online at Vogue Daily: “Dream Wedding Inspiration” or “The 41 Most Memorable Model Weddings” or “How To Surprise Your Groom on the Wedding Day” or “Is It Ever Okay to Tell A Bride You Don’t Like Her Dress?” or any number of Vogue’s image-rich reports of beautiful weddings and their fanciful designer gowns. Weddings were simply not fashionable news in the 1970s! (And if you’ve read my latest book, The End of the Fairy-Tale Bride, you’ll know why—plus learn lots of fascinating bits of bridal history!)

However, since the 1980s (since Lady Diana Spencer’s royal nuptials as well as Martha Stewart’s reinvention of entertaining) weddings have been back in the news—fashion, society, even business news! And the trend is even more ubiquitous today. Perhaps it’s part of our modern “media culture” and its penchant for broadcasting all things personal: our ‘need’ to be seen, to be known, to be in the spotlight—our selfie-ness.

If you’ve been involved in planning a wedding in the last three decades or so, then you’ve been part of this “fashion”—designer gowns, designer cakes, designer favors. Nonetheless, ‘tis important to remember that weddings are about relationships. So in an attempt to be “fashionable,” let’s not forget the things that never go out of fashion! Like kindness. As the Persian poet Rumi shared long ago: “Your acts of kindness are iridescent wings.” (Très chic!) ~

[Photograph courtesy of Vogue Daily]

{The Promise of Wedding Vows}

My article, “The Promise of Wedding Vows”—highlighting the 35^th anniversary of the momentous wedding of Princess Diana—was just published on Huffington Post. This royal event not only changed the culture of weddings worldwide, but also came at the time when the world of women was in a great consciousness shift. 
Plus, the article is an excerpt from my latest book, The End of the Fairy-Tale Bride {Volume One} For Better or Worse, How Princess Diana Rescued the Great White Wedding.

Enjoy! Here’s the link.

{Heart-Centered}

Dear Bride-to-Be: 

“To be ‘on edge,’ you are literally not centered—not being in your spiritual center,” poet Carrie Latet once said. Planning a wedding can be one of the most “on edge” times. With all the commercial hype, canned traditions, and tantalizing nonsense out there, it’s an extra daunting time for the bride and/or the mother of one doing the planning.

What are you doing to stay centered in your heart, grounded in your love during this busy time—a time that’s also very pivotal in deepening your relationship? I’ve often said that when a woman becomes a bride her intuition is heightened, her insights sharpened—IF she stays heart-centered! And there’s the rub. We must be willing to have a still mind—or at least moments devoted to inner and outer quietness and stillness—otherwise we can’t “hear” our intuitive signals, those angelic whisperings and soulful nudges that keep us centered right where we lovingly want to be!

Love. Listen. Let go.

…with love from Cornelia

ps: This is an excerpt from my book, The End of the Fairy-Tale Bride: For Better or Worse, How Princess Diana Rescued the Great White Wedding. Available on Amazon.

[Photo courtesy of Vogue Daily]

{A Mother's Rite-of-Passage}

Dear Bride-to-Be:

In my 30 or so years working with brides and their families while planning a wedding, I have been around many mother-daughter relationships. And if I was ever asked for a bit of coaching by the bride, I may have said something like: “Remember, your wedding is also a rite-of-passage—a time of deep personal change—for your mother as well as for you.” And if the mother asked for a bit of advice, perhaps I’d say: “Remember, your daughter is a grown-up now; it’s time to listen and be a friend.”

I write a lot about this relationship, dedicating a chapter to mothers and daughters in my book The End of the Fairy-Tale Bride, even quoting designers Vera Wang and the late Oscar de la Renta—who both dressed thousands of brides. This from Oscar: “The wedding is almost as important to the mother as it is to the bride.” And from Vera:

The most challenging relationship is often that of mother and daughter. A wedding can unleash torrents of emotion, and a bride must balance her own needs for control with her mother’s sense of involvement.

The theme running through this “mothers and daughters” chapter, however, is ‘being grateful’...opening with the Jean Baptiste Massieu quote: “Gratitude is the memory of the heart.”  So no matter how fraught with tension a situation or relationship becomes, take a deep breath, listen for that “still, small voice of gratitude” and open your heart.

Love. Listen. Let go.

….with love from Cornelia 

ps: Read more about mothers and daughters and gratitude with your own copy of The End of the Fairy-Tale Bride {Volume One} For Better or Worse, How Princess Diana Rescued the Great White Wedding.

[Photo courtesy of BHLN]

{Heart Words}

Dear Bride-to-Be: 

With our “gratitude” theme from last month, I was reminded of another excerpt from my new book, The End of the Fairy-Tale Bride. I love how this little story expresses the importance of sharing from your heart…no matter how busy or tired or preoccupied you might be. The setting here is following a most momentous wedding in 1947:

...then there are always some “heart words” sitting there, waiting to be said or put into a letter, no matter the circumstances, even for a busy and tired king. Following a grand November wedding; after waving to cheering crowds from the central balcony of Buckingham Palace; after a wedding meal “including twelve wedding cakes, the main one nine feet high” where five kings, eight queens, eight princes and ten princesses were present; after the newlyweds, the new Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh, left for their honeymoon in an open carriage; later that evening, as historian Dulcie Ashdown shared, “King George VI sat down to write to his daughter.”

I was so proud of you and thrilled at having you close to me on our long walk in Westminster Abbey, but when I handed your hand to the Archbishop, I felt I had lost something very precious. You were so calm and composed during the Service and said your words with such conviction that I knew everything was alright.

This letter may have been written by a king to his daughter on her wedding day (a princess who only four years later would take her father’s place on the throne, becoming Queen Elizabeth II, and who has now surpassed her great-great grandmother in longevity of service as British monarch), but at its heart, the letter’s loving sentiment is a message that any daughter would be pleased to hear from her father or mother on any given day.

On this day, at this moment, share from your heart. We all need some “heart words” about now!

Love. Listen. Let go.

…with love from Cornelia

[Enjoy your own copy of The End of the Fairy-Tale Bride {Volume One} For Better or Worse, How Princess Diana Rescued the Great White Wedding....easy to order from Amazon with a speedy delivery!] 

[Images above from Queen Elizabeth’s wedding day.]

{A Grateful Heart}

Dear Bride-to-Be: 

Continuing our theme of “gratitude” (and any wedding would definitely lose “style points” without expressing it!), I want to share an excerpt from my new book, The End of the Fairy-Tale Bride {Volume One} For Better or Worse, How Princess Diana Rescued the Great White Wedding. It’s from a section titled, “A Grateful Heart”: 

Diana worked closely with a team of people in preparation for her wedding—a full, busy day where her every move had been followed and commented upon by the worldwide media. Yet those wedding teammates had a surprising end to the long, thrilling and tiring day. “‘I just wanted to say hello and thanks for today,’” Diana told Barbara Daly, her make-up artist, around ten in the evening when she phoned. “There are many beautiful people in the world,” Daly shared in Diana: A Portrait, but Diana had that extra thing, which is really a very genuine warmth because she had a loving and compassionate heart.” In their late-night phone call from the brand-new princess, David and Elizabeth Emanuel were thanked for making her beautiful wedding dress and told “how wonderful she had felt wearing it.” And Diana followed with thank you notes to them all.

The section goes on to explain that “Princess Diana was known throughout her life for her hand-written thank you notes sent immediately following an event, whether a small soirée or a grand gala—or simply acknowledging a kind gesture paid to her.” Now I’m not suggesting that you become known for writing “thank-you notes”—although it would be a beautiful legacy—but becoming known for a kind heart would carry its own “royal” blessing and I would wager that it would light up your world!

Love. Listen. Let go.

…with love from Cornelia

[Enjoy your own copy of The End of the Fairy-Tale Bride {Volume One} For Better or Worse, How Princess Diana Rescued the Great White Wedding.] 

{Mothers, Daughters and Weddings}

Dear Bride-to-Be: 

I thought you’d enjoy my article published in the fall issue of Season Magazine. Click here to read it from the online magazine...and I’ve reprinted it below. ’Tis an excerpt from my new book The End of the Fairy-Tale Bride {Volume One} For Better or Worse, How Princess Diana Rescued the Great White Wedding.

Mothers, Daughters and Weddings

Historically, weddings reflect changes within a culture. And perhaps no relationship is more affected than that of mothers and daughters. It was not long ago (when brides were typically young women not yet out of the “family nest”) that mothers orchestrated the whole affair. But today most brides are independent women who plan their own wedding—only sometimes with their mother’s assistance.

Nevertheless, weddings can still offer the possibility for mothers and daughters to deepen or restore their connection with each other—especially by participating in shared activities that have the quality of ritual. Many years ago this may have been creating the bridal gown together or stitching trousseau linens for the bride’s new home, offering opportunities to chat about life and love and what the future may bring. Today it could be a joint outing to try on dresses. (And if it’s to deepen relationships, I advise leaving judgments at home and taking one’s most diplomatic self along!)

Fashion designer Vera Wang has become an expert on weddings. Not just because she’s designed thousands of bridal gowns—and attended almost as many ceremonies—but also because of her keen observation of relationships. So her take on mothers is worth noting:

Each parent has his or her own distinct part to play. The most complex and challenging relationship, however, is often that of mother and daughter. Differences in style, vision and expectation can begin with the gown and end at the reception, with every issue in between fair game for controversy. A wedding can unleash torrents of emotion, and a bride must balance her own need for control with her mother’s sense of involvement. Sometimes fashion can even become an excuse for unexpressed issues.

The late designer Oscar de la Renta, who had been present for many mother-daughter gatherings in his bridal studio, had “gentlemanly” thoughts about mothers when asked who a bride should bring with her on a shopping excursion:

It would be cruel not to bring your mother along. The wedding is almost as important to the mother as it is to the bride. But brides should prepare their mothers for what they are thinking of wearing. The mother always has a notion of what she wants her daughter to look like, but the daughter is a woman now and she wants to look like one. If I feel like the bride is holding back on choosing something she really wants because she doesn’t want to hurt her mother’s feelings, I ask the mother if I can talk to the bride alone.

I recall those daughter-mother encounters in my former shop; some tender, some extremely tense, some remarkably both. At times it was as though I was watching each woman relive her life in an emotional time-lapse montage. A wedding becomes more of a pleasure and a blessing when we remember it’s a pivotal rite-of-passage for both daughter and mother. 
Try a little tenderness.~

[Excerpted from my new book: The End of theFairy-Tale Bride {Volume One} For Better or Worse, How Princess Diana Rescuedthe Great White Wedding.]

[Mother and daughter photo courtesy of BHLDN]

{A Meandering Path}

Dear Bride-to-Be: 

I always find my customers and audiences curious about the origin of wedding rituals: tossing the garter; exchanging rings; the “something old, something new” rhyme; the bride’s bouquet. These are rituals and traditions so familiar, even comforting, that we’ve accepted them into our modern celebrations—yet a mystery remains.

Their origins are hazy; different societies added different meanings and their practice usually took a meandering path through the centuries, making some hard to trace. Wedding traditions, as author Carol McD. Wallace shares, have “complicated roots.” That’s why I consider wedding rituals come from sacred legends or a kind of fairy tale: folklore from our heritage revealing itself a bit mysteriously.

Whatever rituals and traditions you use in your wedding ceremony—whether in a gilded cathedral or grand synagogue, on some lofty mountaintop or in a serene garden—choose ones that touch your heart, light up your relationship, and move you to deeper expressions of love.

Love. Listen. Let go.

….with love from Cornelia

[This is excerpted from my new book, The End ofthe Fairy-Tale Bride {Volume One} For Better or Worse, How Princess DianaRescued the Great White Wedding.]

[Photograph courtesy of Vogue.]

{Breathe, Smile and Go Slowly}

Dear Bride-to-Be: 

“To be ‘on edge,’ you are literally not centered—not being in your spiritual center,” poet Carrie Latet once said. Planning a wedding can be one of the most “on edge” times. With all the commercial hype, canned traditions, and tantalizing nonsense out there, it’s an extra daunting time for the bride and/or the mother of one doing the planning.

The wise Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh prompts us: “Breathe, smile and go slowly.” This is a perfect mantra for busy brides…especially when you want to stay heart-centered and lovingly connected with your beloved.

Whether we’re planning a wedding, a trip, a charity ball, or what’s for dinner, we can all use support in slowing down, relaxing, and bringing ease to our bodies, mind and spirit. It just makes us happier! So take a deep, slow, smiling breath…and see how it feels. Mmmmm.

Love. Listen. Let go.

….with love from Cornelia

ps: This is an excerpt from my new book, The End of the Fairy-Tale Bride {VolumeOne} For Better or Worse, How Princess Diana Rescued the Great White Wedding. Do you have your copy?

[Photograph courtesy of Vogue]

{Princesses, Heiresses and Weddings}

Dear Bride-to-Be: 

I thought you’d enjoy my article published in the summer issue of Season Magazine. Click here to read it from the online magazine...and I’ve reprinted it below. ’Tis an excerpt from my new book The End of the Fairy-Tale Bride {Volume One} For Better or Worse, How Princess Diana Rescued the Great White Wedding.

Princesses, Heiresses and Weddings

“We knew that we wanted Diana to have a large bouquet,” explained her gown designers David and Elizabeth Emanuel. “The scale of the dress meant that a small one would have simply disappeared.” With the universal appeal of Princess Diana’s shimmering wedding in the summer of 1981, over-sized, shower-style bridal bouquets became the fashion. (Of course, most things in the glitzy, high-flying ‘80s were on a grander scale!)

Almost a hundred years earlier, Princess May of Teck (who became Queen Mary, Prince Charles’ great-grandmother), started a similar trend when she carried a huge, cascading bouquet for her 1893 wedding to the future King George V. It was called “a modern touch” because its “shape had only recently ousted the posy,” shared historian Ann Monsarrat. The 19^th century English journal Manners for Women attributed this “extravagant fashion to the influx of heiresses from the New World into British society through marriage.” These were daughters of the nouveau riche of the Gilded Age who took their fathers’ immense wealth abroad between the 1870s and early1920s to marry cash-strapped noblemen, like the character of Cora Crawley on Downton Abbey. They not only rescued a way of life for the British aristocracy—at least for a few years—but also lent their opulent taste to wedding celebrations.

Charles Frederick Worth, an Englishman who set up shop in Paris, became the father of modern couture—and a favorite designer of these rich American girls who in turn became famous for their expensive Worth wardrobes and diamond tiaras. They spent thousands every season at his salon and when the time came, ordered a dazzling wedding gown and fancy trousseau. Consuelo Vanderbilt, Jennie Jerome and Frances Ellen Work (Princess Diana’s maternal great-grandmother) were three of those nearly 500 heiresses from America who put their glittering mark on weddings.

During this time most British princess brides followed Queen Victoria’s lead and, instead of wearing one of the many diamond tiaras at their disposal, opted for the more sentimental choice of an elaborate, yet rather humble, bridal crown made of wax orange blossoms. However, many of the American heiress brides, more into opulence than sentiment, wore diamond tiaras—usually a gift from their father. 

Perhaps to make a proclamation all their own, several Windsor brides of the 20^th century (namely Princesses Marina, Elizabeth, Margaret and Anne) also broke with the orange blossom tradition and chose diamonds for their hair—large, old, spectacular ones. So for her wedding, Lady Diana followed suit by wearing the Spencer family tiara: a whimsical floral design in gold, silver and heirloom diamonds. (And as far as I could tell, there was not an orange blossom in sight!)

Weddings have always been a time to dress up, make a statement and dress like a princess. As author Carol McD. Wallace shared: “If a wedding isn’t the ultimate chance to show off, what exactly is it?” ~

{Flowers and Their Meanings}

Dear Bride-to-Be: 
Brides and the language of flowers have a romantic and mystical heritage. Through the ages, sentimental folks assigned meanings to flowers and herbs according to their innate nature—and a language was created.

Bridal folklore throughout history, inspired by goddess mythology, tells of maidens entwining creamy white, aromatic orange blossoms into a bridal wreath for their hair, to ensure fertility; or carrying a bunch of sweet smelling white lilacs, representing innocence; or tucking fragrant herbs into their bouquets, rosemary for remembrance and dill, believed to provoke lust. Both herbs were also eaten for their supposed powers!

So whatever flowers you are carrying or wearing or displaying at your wedding, consider their folklore and mystery and romance (like from Kate Greenaway’s Language of Flowers)—because sometimes knowing the ancient story of something, especially flowers, opens up some “fragrant” yummy-ness in the present...perhaps even opening your heart to give and receive more tenderness!

Love. Listen. Let go.

.....with love from Cornelia

ps: This is an excerpt from my latest book, The End of the Fairy-Tale Bride {Volume One} For Better or Worse, How Princess Diana Rescued the Great White Wedding. Enjoy....