What’s with the white dress?

So I have been looking around at different styles of wedding gowns, I have seen some pretty amazing ones in light pink, ivory and even red or black. But everyone knows that a bride is expected to wear white, but why?

Findings:

So another disappointment.

I always thought this was because white represented purity, virginity, or innocence...But apparently before the 1840s, brides just wore any nice dress they had or could afford, that is UNTIL British Queen Victoria married in 1840 with white gown. 
She set a trend that still goes on today and is probably never going to die off. It is said there was no specific reason for that color, just that she liked it. 
After her wedding, brides started wanting to dress in white, (just like the queen) and the trend became popular because white was “cool” to begin with.
What made this color so cool? >>Well the fact that it was expensive to develop on gown fabrics and it was difficult to keep clean made it unaffordable to commoners. So for a long while, only the elite could have white gowns.

In conclusion, it was a trend set my materialistic brides that wanted to show that they could afford a dress just like the Queen’s.

The meaning of  purity, virginity and  innocence were attributed along the way.

Here is a rhyme printed in the Farmer’s Almanac (which was a big deal) in the mid 1800s after Queen Victoria’s wedding.

“Married in White, you have chosen right

Married in Grey, you will go far away

Married in Black, you will wish yourself back

Married in Red, you will wish yourself dead

Married in Green, ashamed to be seem

Married in Blue, you will always be true

Married in Pearl, you will live in a whirl

Married in Yellow, ashamed of your fellow

Married in Brown, you will live in the town

Married in Pink, your spirit will sink

...Ok so red is out of the question for me.