3 December 1939

Wedding Dress

We have come to see the wedding dress as a symbol one of life's biggest moments; when two lives are joined together. Throughout most of history, brides rarely purchased a dress specifically for their wedding day. Typically, the bride wore her finest dress for the ceremony even if it was dark in color. In fact, dark colors hid stains and imperfections so that the dress could be worn again. It was the 1840 wedding of England's Queen Victoria to her cousin, Prince Albert, that inspired the common people to wear white wedding dresses. This particular dress was worn by Alice Siebold on 3 December 1939 when she wed Dick Coffee in Fort Wayne. The silk dress with velvet appliqué has a long train and was worn with a cathedral length veil and a blue ribbon garter.