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Category: Fashion

A Brief Glimpse into the History and Fashions of Gay Weddings

by Michelle Shen

For centuries, people in the gay community were unable to legally marry their chosen same-sex partners. Connecticut set a precedent by becoming one of the first of the American states to legalize gay marriage in 2008, but the fight for marriage equality in the United States continued. In 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court recognized same-sex marriage as a matter of law. The result was a boom in formal marriage ceremonies among the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer (LGBTQ+) community. 

Choosing Their Own Path 

Ellen DeGeneres and her wife, Portia de Rossi, at their 2008 wedding. Ellen is wearing a white suit while Portia wears a dress. Photo by Lara Porzak Photography. 

Even before legal recognition, queer weddings were not new. Photographs and accounts of historic LGBTQ+ weddings were often carefully hidden away to ensure the safety of the couples and those in attendance. The few surviving photos provide intriguing glimpses into how LGBTQ+ couples chose to dress on their special day. While heterosexual tradition dictated that women wear gowns and men wear tuxedos, but no such formal precedent existed for LGBTQ+ couples. 

Queer couples…began to transform gender roles surrounding marriage to fit their unique needs… With each wedding, couples continue to personalize the traditionally heteronormative fashions of marriage.

Many LGBTQ+ couples did not conform to traditional gender roles. Surviving photos show some LGBTQ+ couples opting for conventional, gender-normative wedding garb, while others selected outfits that flouted tradition.

This wedding between a cisgender woman (Alyona Fursova, left) and transgender woman (Irina Shumilova, right) took place in Russia in 2014. While same-sex marriage was (and is) illegal in Russia, Irina was legally male at the time of the wedding. Both women opted to wear traditional white gowns. Photo by Roman Melnik. 

Queer couples — especially those composed of two women — began to transform gender roles surrounding marriage to fit their unique needs, with some women wearing tuxedos while others donned traditional wedding gowns. With each wedding, couples continue to personalize the traditionally heteronormative fashions of marriage.

What the Photos Tell Us 

Images that depict historical LGBTQ+ weddings can be seen on the internet. Unfortunately, we are unable to show most of them because they can’t be verifiably sourced. As a result, we are only able to describe these photos here. In one photo (circa 1930) showing the marriage of two women, one of the participants wears a wedding gown while the other wears a man’s military uniform complete with a sword. In three photos (circa 1928) of two women in wedding attire, one woman wears a white dress while the other sports a man’s suit and top hat.

Overall, there is a sad deficit in our knowledge about what LGBTQ+ couples wore when celebrating their weddings in decades and centuries prior. However, the photos and accounts that have survived give us some insight into the traditions and fashions of same-sex marriage. The trend continues today as modern couples celebrate their hard-won freedom to openly participate in an institution which historically denied them access. 

Want to learn more about the history of wedding fashions? Visit our exhibit I Thee Wed: Bridal Fashion from the Collection to see some of the Museum’s stunning wedding gowns and learn their stories.

Learning the Language

  • Heteronormativity is the assumption that heterosexuality – attraction to the opposite sex – is “normal” and “natural.” It assumes people are heterosexual by default and can be used to construe homosexuality – attraction to the same sex – as “unnatural.”  
  • LGBT is an initialism of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender. Sometimes a Q+ is added to include Queer and other sexual identities (LGBTQ+).  
  • Queer is an umbrella term used for those who do not identify as heterosexual and/or cisgender. 
  • Cisgender refers to a person who identifies with the gender they were assigned at birth.  
  • Transgender refers to a person who identifies with a gender different than the one assigned at birth. 

I Thee Wed: Bridal fashion from the Collection

by Michelle Shen

As rice showers down, the happy couple runs to a car donning cans and ribbons along with the words “Just Married” sprawled across the back window. Smiling ear to ear, the groom disappears into the cab followed closely by the bride pulling her long white skirts around her. 

This classic scene is what many of us picture when we think of a wedding. The white wedding dress is probably the most significant part of the scene but has this always been the case? White wedding gowns in a variety of materials and styles are held in countless museum collections across the globe including Westport Museum. But these ideals of bridal wear, along with the social definition of marriage, have been constantly changing throughout time. 

The Iconic White Gown 

White can symbolize virtue, purity and innocence in Western countries such as the United States in the 21st century, but in the past the color white specifically symbolized one thing: wealth. 

Until synthetic dyes and electric washing machines became widely available in the 20th century, keeping clothing clean was a laborious task. Fine white textiles, especially with fragile lace, silk, and satin used only for one occasion would have been unfeasible for most. To marry, women of middle and lower classes would wear their “best dress,” usually in a shade of brown. Colors such as grey or light purple could be multifunctional as both wedding and funeral gowns.

Queen Victoria's wedding gown on display

White as the ideal wedding gown color spread in the 1840s with the publication of Godey’s Ladies Book. Although white was a wedding dress color among royals and the wealthy prior, Queen Victoria’s white wedding gown worn in 1840, became the ideal because of widely distributed media coverage of the nuptials of the young British Queen. Today Victoria is still credited with the “creation” of the white wedding dress.

Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom wed Price Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha on February 10th of 1840. Her white gown was made with materials manufactured in Britain to bolster the country’s silk and lace trades. (The Royal Collection Trust)

Changing Definitions 

Just as the use and symbolism of white in weddings has evolved so has the social understanding of a marriage contract. Marriage as a legal agreement has existed for millennia, usually as an agreement between the father of the bride and the groom—with the father literally handing off his daughter to her husband. These marriage contracts, and their subsequent wedding ceremonies, were legally a transfer of assets—the woman—from one man to another. 

In Westport in the 18th century a White woman could not own property, make contracts, or vote—women of color and immigrant women held even fewer legal protections. Legal contracts such as marriage did little to safeguard women through the 19th and 20th centuries; Women entering a marriage contract were free to do so under their own legal power in the mid-20th century. Throughout history “concubine marriage” allowed couples to engage in intimate relations and co-habitation when differences of religion or race did not allow for legal matrimony. Concubine marriages were formed by contract, meant to financially protect women, and sometimes her children, in the event of separation. 

Two guests at Westport Museum's Build a Bride exhibit

Opening Reception

Visitors explored several examples of wedding gowns—both white and the less traditional—in the Museum’s exhibition opening on March 10, 2023. Not only did our community get to admire these gowns in detail but also discovered how these iconic dresses relate to wealth, class, gender, and women’s rights.

Visitors enjoy the interactivity of the exhibit as well as the gowns themselves.

Our textile collection contains over 1200 individual pieces; these gowns are fine examples but represent such a small part of our holdings. These gowns not only exemplify the changing silhouettes of bridal fashion but also the changing nature of women, and those presenting as female, in our society.” 


– Nicole Carpenter, Programs and Collections Director

Many enjoyed creating their own wedding dress through the exhibit’s interactive magnet wall, highlighting wedding fashions from around the globe and how individualism is encouraged in multicultural ceremonies today. Explore our exhibit yourself through November 11, 2023.