Wedding dress of Victoria, Princess Royal
On 25 January 1858, a royal wedding took place that was designed to align the fortunes of Europe's two most important powers, Great Britain and Germany's chief principality, Prussia. The bride was Victoria, Princess Royal, the oldest child of Queen Victoria and her husband, Prince Albert. She married Prince Frederick of Prussia, later Frederick III, German Emperor and King of Prussia, son of Wilhelm I and Augusta of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, at St. James's Palace, Chapel Royal, St. James's, London, England.
The dress was composed of a rich robe of white moire antique ornamented with three flounces of Honiton lace. The design of the lace consisted of bouquets in open work of the rose, shamrock, and thistle in three medallions. At the top of each flounce on the front of the dress were wreaths of orange and myrtle blossoms, the latter being the bridal flower of Germany. Every wreath ended with bouquets of the same flowers and the length of each being so graduated as to give the appearance of a robe hemmed with flowers. The apex of this floral pyramid was formed by a large bouquet worn on the girdle. The train, which was of an unusual length of more than three yards, was of white moire antique, trimmed with two rows of Honiton lace surmounted by wreaths similar to those on the flounces of the dress with bouquets at short intervals.
- "Royal Wedding Dresses throughout history". The Royal Family. Retrieved 9 October 2018.
- Walter Hilliard Bidwell. Imperial courts of France, England, Russia, Prussia, Sardinia, and Austria: Richly illustrated with portraits of imperial sovereigns and their cabinet ministers, C. Scribner, 1863. pg 349.