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The first documented instance of a princess who wore a white wedding dress for a royal wedding ceremony is that of Philippa of England, who wore a tunic with a cloak in white silk bordered with squirrel and ermine in 1406, when she married Eric of Pomerania. The amount and the price of material a wedding dress contained was a reflection of the bride's social standing and indicated the extent of the family's wealth to wedding guests. The poorest of brides wore their best church dress on their wedding day. Brides dressed in the height of current fashion, with the richest materials their families' money could buy.
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It was common to see them wearing bold colors and layers of furs, velvet and silk. Brides from wealthy families often wore rich colors and exclusive fabrics. Brides were therefore expected to dress in a manner that cast their families in the most favorable light and befitted their social status, for they were not representing only themselves during the ceremony. Many weddings were more a matter of politics than love, particularly among the nobility and the higher social classes. They could be a union between two families, two businesses or even two countries. Weddings performed during and immediately following the Middle Ages were often more than just a union between two people.
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Until the late 1960s wedding dresses reflected the styles of the day since then they have often been based on Victorian styles. The woman on the right is wearing a typical wedding dress from 1929.