1965 Photos of Real People in Wedding Fashions
1960s Wedding Dress
 This 1960s wedding photo is of Pat at her white wedding in South Wales on a cold
Thursday in February 1965, amid the odd flurry of a snow shower.
You
may wonder why anyone would choose a cold February day for a wedding
when the majority of weddings, according to The Office for National Statistics, always
take place in the warmer months of
June,
July,
August and
September.
In fashion history terms, this also means women get a better chance to
don a fancy outfit and not be outdone by torrential weather.
But Pat had met and got engaged to Arthur, a man who was on a leave of
duty. He was given an earlier date to go back to the Far East where
he worked.
Panic stations - 6 weeks notice to prepare for a wedding.
No time to book a Saturday wedding. No time to make gowns - everything had to be bought
quickly. Today perhaps we would use wedding planners when trying to arrange a
wedding so quickly.
Pat
wore a modern empire-line 1960s wedding dress made of a brilliant white silk
fabric. The wedding gown had an empire line bodice decorated with Cornelli embroidery ribbon
work. This raised embellishment was a precursor to whole fabric
flower decoration being affixed to wedding and
evening dresses, by design houses like that of Jean Varon. Pat paid £24 for the lined dress
and she made the veil. She attached the veiling to a fashionable tiara style pearl headdress she
bought.
I think Pat, my favourite elder sister looks beautiful in her wedding dress.
Even now the wedding dress still looks
attractive 40+ years on. This is always a good test of a wedding
gown, when it still looks like it could be worn a generation or so
later. This is usually only possible when there is classic quality
and nothing too extreme about a wedding gown.
»
The empire line style wedding gown is typical of the silhouette line.
It marked important changes in dresses in fashion history terms.
This empire line style of dress was a departure for Pat, who with her
hour glass figure, normally preferred typical early sixties, late fifties
curvy silhouettes that emphasised her small waist.
However by
1965, Marments of Cardiff, the shop where Pat bought the dress, were
mostly stocking the newer lines of empire line wedding gowns.
Suddenly other styles that emphasised the waist looked a bit dated.
Empire line bodices on dresses were one of the typical newer sixties
fashion silhouettes. The high waisted Directoire look had been
gaining ground since around 1960. See details of
train style types below.
These 1960s wedding photos must not be published/used elsewhere -
© Copyright
www.fashion-era.com 2006.
The Vogue Dress pattern, bottom left, is of the empire evening gown and coat
from 1960 and you can see how the angel bell sleeves on Pat's dress follow a
similar line.
The last two wedding patterns on the right are from 1964 and 1966.
The skirts have some fullness, but the line has changed and for anyone
but a traditionalist, the new silhouette of the day was empire and figure
skimming, rather than hour glass emphasising. Looser trapeze
dresses would soon become the norm in day wear too for many styles of
the 1960s and 1970s.
 
By
today's standards, the necklines on the 1960s wedding dresses shown here are
all comparatively modest. The sleeves were also considered
essential, because the arms, but especially shoulders, needed to be covered and not displayed bare inside a
church.
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The bridesmaid's dresses were made of a pastel blue slubbed fabric with
blue guipure lace bodices. Their flower sprays followed the same
design lines as Pat's bridal spray.
The groom and ushers wore traditional morning dress. The guest on
the far left is wearing the latest lower 'Mod' shoes.
By 1965, hair was still worn high just like
it had been in Carol's wedding of 1963. The
bridesmaid's hair decoration was
an Alice band covered in matching blue slubbed fabric and decorated with guipure
lace motifs.
The veils of 1965 were bouffant short mostly. They
were always designed and
affixed to the hair in a manner to add height. They gave an even
greater bouffant effect to an already bouffant hairstyle.
Veils were often set atop pill box hats. Hats instead of veils
also began to gain ground and some bridal gowns had hoods. The
various society weddings of earlier years also set a trend for tiara
styles, although in mass market terms the bridal tiaras were mostly made
of pearls, crystal or diamante rather than diamonds.
On Pat's wedding morning the bride and bridesmaids travelled to a hairdresser
in Cardiff to have their hair set. The veil was attached to Pat's
hairdo by the hairdresser. The bouffant hairdos were also arranged
around the Alice bands set into the bridesmaid's hair. The hair
style was made rigid with hairspray to keep the hairstyles high. Nowadays a hairdresser is more likely
to be booked to attend the whole bridal party at a country house venue or at home.
 In the wedding picture it's noticeable that many female guests wear hats
that also have a bouffant silhouette. On the small photo to the
far right Phyllis wears a magnificent hat. Gwen stands next to her
wearing an interesting striped bomb hat.
You can see
Phyllis's wedding of 1947 here.
You can see
Gwen's 1937 wedding here.
The wedding photo left shows the detail of the mink trimmed suit that
the mother of the bride Lorraine wore. Lorraine was very
smartly dressed for the occasion.
You can see
Lorraine's wedding of 1939 here.
Lorraine's cream boucle wool suit consisted of a boxy cut semi fitted jacket, a
straight slim skirt and mink trimming at cuffs and neckline. This
mother of the bride suit jacket would be hot on trend now in
autumn 2006 some 40 years later. Fur was a feature trim on the
clothes of many guests.
Unlike today when women often walk around with jackets or coats open in
a casual manner, in 1965 women mostly buttoned up their jackets in wear.
Clothes were worn to present as neat and groomed an impression as
practically possible.
Lorraine's hat was made from large fabric rose petals. Her outfit
was teamed with brown leather accessories which picked up the brown
banding in the mink trim. At much the same era it was also popular
to decorate an untrimmed suit with mink twirl brooches as an alternative
to estate jewellery.
There are also some very similar
suit fashion
plates on the 1960s
pages here.
˚
Click thumbnails
 After
the wedding Pat and Arthur went on their honeymoon to London. Pat wore a pale melon
coloured matching dress and jacket in a slubbed fabric.
It was usual in the 1960s to still team a going away outfit with a hat. This hat was an alternative look to the bouffant hats shown in the main wedding photo.
Again just like her wedding dress, Pat chose an up-to-date semi fitted
outfit, which fashion history now shows to be the forerunner of looser
easier shift dresses and boxier jacket styles. In memory terms, such ensembles later became more associated
with the 1960s than the fashions we have seen here.
These 1960s wedding photos must not be published/used elsewhere -
© Copyright
www.fashion-era.com 2006.
Pat's wedding bouquet above follows the newer neater styles of wedding
spray bouquet fashions popular in the 1960s, a reaction to the huge
maidenhair fern dominated bouquets
of earlier years. These smaller wedding bridal spray bouquets had
been making an appearance at society weddings some time, and now the
fashion caught on nationwide.
 Pat's bouquet was made by
Rose, another young bride shown left.
Rose also married in the mid sixties in 1966,
before emigrating to Australia.
In the 60s, emigration to Australia was a
dream for many Brits who hoped to make new lives with new
families in a sunny environment.
 At
the time a £10 passage fee and having skills to take to Australia was the main requirement for British citizens to emigrate. Before cheap air travel, it was often decades before
families were reunited with old friends.
Her 1966 empire line wedding dress
left is noticeably similar in style to Pat's
wedding gown of 1965. The sleeves have that traditional bridal touch of pointing
down the hand.
You can see the dress more clearly in the enlargement and will have an
opportunity to see the fresh flower headdress Rose made.
Note how similar in line her wedding gown is to the
Simplicity 1960s dress pattern 6352 beside
it. This dress pattern illustrates a court train which fell from the
shoulders.
You can buy old dressmaking and vintage patterns at Michelle Lee's
website
http://www.oldpatterns.com/ .
Michelle
has old
patterns spanning the best part of the 20th century.
In Pat's wedding photo above, the train flows from the centre-back empire waistline as a loose train. This is a different type of wedding dress train from the cut-in-one with the skirt style, as shown in
earlier pages such as
the wedding dress Carol
(who was also one of Pat's bridesmaids).
There are several train types and sometimes only minimal difference
between them! Terms also used include fishtail train and sweeping
trumpet skirt.
 The shortest type of train is a sweep train and it extends just slightly
longer than the wedding dress hem by about 8 inches to a foot at the back
of the dress.
Traditionally a court train is 6 yards in length, but no more.
Originally a court train fell from the shoulders. Nowadays a court
train is usually shorter and can fall from any part of the back.
You can
see a
traditional court train above.
A chapel train sweeps from the waist extending about 3 or 4 feet.
Carol's
1963 wedding dress has a chapel train. Bridal websites create
variations within this term such as semi-chapel for a slightly smaller
chapel train (also called a sweep train as described above), sweeping
chapel for a broader spread train and semi-cathedral train when the
chapel train is a touch longer, but not as long as a full cathedral
train.
A cathedral wedding dress train has a much longer sweep than the chapel
train. The train spread extends about 9 feet from the bride's waist.
Finally, the longest wedding train is a royal train. As
the name suggests, this wedding train is seen mainly at
royal weddings. At 10ft plus, this train is even longer than the Cathedral wedding dress
train. Cathedral and royal trains are often detachable.
To wear this style well, you need a great cathedral aisle for the dress
to display to best effect. It is also an excuse to have plenty of
attendants to carry the train as you will certainly need help. The
royal wedding train is really best for a princess and a television
broadcast!
Old photos can be useful when tracing family members and narrowing down
search dates. These photo pages may help you put an era to your
undated images.
You can read more about 1960's fashions in
the 60s mini section.
You can see more
1960s images for
colouring in.
You can
read
how to date an old photo in this section here.
˚
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Page Added 4 October 2006
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2000-2010.
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Old photos can be useful when tracing family members and narrowing down
search dates. These photo pages may help you put an era to your
undated images.
If you have old wedding photos please send them to me and if suitable I will
add them to this pictorial section of social history.
OLD WEDDING PHOTOS
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