1800's Wedding Photo

How many of you have seen these wedding photos from the mid to late 1800's?? The bride is in a black wedding dress yet wearing the traditional white veil. Do you know why?
Do you think it is because someone in the bridal party's family had passed on? Do you think it is macabre?

This time in history is known as the Victorian Era. It is during the reign of Queen Victoria of England (1837-1901). Queen Victoria (seen below) ruled England for 63 years. During that time her husband and consort, Prince Albert, died. After his passing she dressed in black for the remainder of her life. To honor the Queen in her mourning, brides of the Victorian Era wore black wedding dresses. That is why you see photos like the one seen above.I often have these wedding photos for sale in my booth at Merchants Square and no one wants to buy them. They think it is related to a death in the family of someone in the wedding party. That it is somehow icky or macabre. But, I think these photos show a tribute to Queen Victoria who was much loved by all during that time.

What do you think?

I'm supposed to be cleaning!

Here I sit at the computer, scanning and cropping photos, and not doing what I set out to do! Anyone else have that problem?? My son, Rob, is coming to live with me for a while. He is due to arrive on Saturday sometime. I got distracted from my main objective -- cleaning up the spare bedroom!

First of all, I have done more reorganization in the garage this morning. I moved boxes, emptied boxes, threw out broken stuff, and I think that we can now get two cars in the three car garage! Rob's car is small, so there shouldn't be a problem.

Next I moved on to cleaning up the spare room which is part craft room, part sewing room and sometime guest quarters. In picking up stuff, I found an antique photo album tucked away that I had forgotten about. So, dropping my main goal on the floor (cleaning that room!), I took out some old photos, have priced a few to take to Merchant Square and thought I would show you some of the nicer old photos in that album.

You can sure tell these two are brother and sister! Lovely curly, blond hair! Look at his "boater" hat! Love it!
I thought this couple was hansome! And they look so young!
Another brother and sister picture. I think these preschoolers are just too cute! Now that they are scanned into my computer, I can try to incorporate them into a future project.

I am going to post these three pictures on my flickr page which is here. That way you can use the old photos, too. Glad to share!!