Although today it’s customary for bridesmaids to dress in colors that compliment the wedding’s theme, long ago bridesmaids wore white to match the bride. This trend seems to have begun with Queen Victoria and King Albert’s wedding in 1840 when Victoria and all her bridesmaids wore white.

Since then, it’s changed so as to prevent the bridesmaids from outshining the bride.

As this photo from an Australian wedding in 1910 shows, wedding processions have traditionally been an important part of weddings.

Even today, they show that a wedding is about to start and what people are involved in the ceremony.

This photo was taken in 1894. At this time, many wedding portraits were turned into what was called a “cabinet card“: a portrait that was mounted on a card.

These cards were popularized by Queen Victoria and King Albert at their wedding, but they were a form of photography that was accessible to most social classes.

Because photography equipment was bulkier and couldn’t travel very far, most wedding portraits during this time were taken after the wedding in the photographer’s studio.

That’s part of the reason why wedding photography at this time looks more staged than it normally does today.

In the 1880s, Kodak was founded. This company found a way to make photography equipment smaller and more accessible.

As a result, wedding photos could be taken at the actual event.

A floral wedding arch has been a part of wedding ceremonies for years. Wedding arches were used in ancient Greece and Rome, but really took on the ornate form we know today in America around the time of this photo, 1909.

The wedding cake has its origins in ancient Rome when celebrants used to bite into a scone or a piece of bread.

However, it wasn’t until the 18th century that wedding cakes started getting sweet and tiered. Legend has it that the first tiered wedding cake was a lovesick baker’s way of proving his worth to the bride’s father.

This is a photo of a Parsi wedding around 1900. Weddings from this culture in India often take several days and involve many traditions.

That’s as true now as it was back then.

Cupid is the Roman god of love and desire. Because of his place in mythology, it makes sense that couples would want to include the cherub in some of their pictures.

Because brides in the Victorian era often had smaller bouquets and more conservative accessories, by the Roaring 20s, brides were ready to shake it up a little!

It was common for brides to walk down the aisle with massive bouquets and wear bold eye makeup at this time.

This is another wedding tradition that began long ago.

According to Martha Stewart, brides in ancient Rome wore veils as a way to thwart evil spirits.

The trend died out for a while, but Queen Victoria repopularized it with her wedding garb.

Weddings of the 1920s were often influenced by flappers and their distinct styles.

During this era, women wore hats that were similar to what flappers wore, rather than the traditional veil.

The silhouettes of wedding dresses also became straighter and smoother to fit with the times.

Around the late 1800s, white became the de facto color for wedding dresses.

In addition to that, around the same time, wedding dresses shifted from a nicer dress that a bride would wear again into a once-in-a-lifetime outfit that was meant to make her feel her most beautiful.

While these photos are glamorous, weddings during the Victorian era were significantly more humble than most weddings today.

Often, the wedding would take place in the bride’s house or in the church with a small number of guests. However, one beautiful detail of these weddings is that the bride would sometimes walk down the aisle on a bed of flower petals because they believed it would lead to a happy life.

It was quite common for women to faint during Victorian times. Although there are still some theories as to why this happened so frequently, one of the most popular ideas is that fainting was due to improper nutrition.

If women weren’t getting enough iron, they were prone to fainting – but the trait was actually seen as highly feminine and not a cause of huge alarm. But it happened frequently at weddings.

This is a portrait of Madame Lillian Evanti. She was the first African-American woman to sing opera in a European company.

She was a trailblazer and she certainly had style.

This couple met as performers in PT Barnum’s circus, who hired them both because they were dwarfs. They fell in love and became known as a glamorous couple; they even were able to charge people $50 per entry to their wedding in 1863.

In this photo, the bride and the groom are not in the center, but slightly off the side. They are also surrounded by family and friends.

Different Inuit tribes have different wedding traditions, but some of them involved things like the groom going to work for the bride’s family for a year before they could get married.

There are many historical records of these lovebirds, as they were both prominent members of British and American society.

Although their wedding announcement merited a write-up in the New York Times, it seems that their marriage was as turbulent as it was passionate.

No matter what time period people are in, the wedding march has been an opportunity for many important members of the couple’s family and friends to be involved in the wedding.

Wedding processions and marches have been around for thousands of years, and although they used to have a more utilitarian purpose, they are still important today just for flair.