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Jayne Shrimpton, dress historian and portrait specialist, explains how to use clues to date old family photographs of your ancestors' weddings
From the earliest days of portraiture, paintings representing betrothal and marriage predominated. So when commercial photography developed in the 1840s, these important events continued as favoured pictorial themes. Most of us have old family wedding photographs in our collections, from paired or double Victorian studio portraits, to extended outdoor group scenes. Early studio marriage photos may go unnoticed, for newlyweds generally posed in their fashionable ‘Sunday best’, without flowers or other distinguishing attributes.
Wedding photographs are heirlooms to treasure, and to learn from. They provide an exact visual representation of the official marriage records on which we all depend to construct our family tree. Many portray groups of relatives all in one place, which is very helpful when making meaningful connections between various individuals. Some include the only known depiction of an otherwise camera-shy ancestor, or, conversely, portray forebears seen in other photographs, confirming suspected identities and forming a firm point on our ancestral visual timeline.
Photographs of weddings, whether economical and simple or grand and impressive, are also sentimental pictures that have been carefully preserved and retain a strong emotional value today. They often record the best times in our forebears’ lives, and sometimes details in wedding pictures demonstrate tangible links down the generations, like a beloved wedding dress or veil worn by successive brides over the years.
Some wedding photographs are firmly identified, while others survive without names or dates. This guide helps with successfully dating and contextualising some of our most beautiful, interesting and important family heirlooms.
Following technological advances facilitating outdoor photography, in the late 1860s wealthy families began to hire photographers to visit the reception venue. This ‘white wedding’ scene was taken at the home of the bride, the daughter of a railway engineer.
White bridal attire, attendants and flowers – the desirable ‘white wedding’ – were initially limited to affluent ancestors, occurring in outdoor photographs like this from the late 1860s onwards.
At an 1860s ‘white wedding’ the bride and bridesmaids all had white gowns, white veils and posy bouquets – a good dating clue, but hard to tell them apart!
Since this is an upper-middle-class wedding, these men all wear formal, knee-length frock coats with boutonnières (floral buttonholes) in their lapels and contrasting fashionable lighter trousers.
A young boy sitting on the floor in front wears a picturesque velvet costume. This knickerbockers suit was a new style established during the 1860s.
This photograph is identifiable as a classic studio wedding portrait. The couple’s intimate pose implies their relationship and the bride clearly displays her wedding band, highlighted in gold.
We can date this image to c1870–1874 because of the bride’s hairstyle incorporating thick chignon behind her head and her layered costume displaying bustle drapery at the back.
It looks as if the bride might be pregnant. Many brides were when they married, but rarely revealed the fact in photographs. Otherwise the bulge might possibly be bulky drapery!
The groom wears a high-fashion narrow-fitting suit, the coloured trim or piping outlining the outer trouser leg seams a dress detail associated mainly (but not exclusively) with the 1870s.
Advances in outdoor photography during the late 1800s encouraged wedding group scenes. Special bridal wear and costly ‘white weddings’ weren’t yet common, but ordinary brides often wore a veil and other white accessories.
This photograph can be firmly dated to the mid-1890s from the fashion clues, especially the women’s ‘leg-of-mutton’ sleeves, at their widest in 1895/1896.
Typically this bride wears a fashionable pastel-coloured day dress, accessorised with a special white veil, striking lace collar, white gloves and bodice corsage.
The bridesmaid (left) wears clothes and accessories similar or possibly identical to the bride, but, as usual around the century’s turn, a fashionable hat not a veil.
The men’s stiff bowler hats, starched winged shirt collars, white neckties, gloves and boutonnières are all typical of ordinary weddings of the era.
