The wedding dress appeared in the Middle Ages with the solidification of the Christian marriage ritual. The dress was an essential part of the ceremony for the bride, who not only had to prove her suitability as a wife, but also had to prove her literal worth: the amount of money she would bring to a marriage. Using the best fabrics and vibrant colors, which were then difficult to obtain due to the cost of dyes, the bride could show that she came from significant wealth using a well-made dress.

Today, the majority of brides prefer to wear a white dress on their wedding day. The symbolic meaning of white is purity, or in other words, virginity. The tradition of a white dress began, however, with Queen Victoria of England. Her choice of a white wedding dress for her marriage to Prince Albert inspired a fashion trend that still holds considerable sway. Before Victoria, brides might marry in any color, even black. Outside of Western culture, many brides would not even consider a white dress. The color red is particularly popular in Eastern cultures, signifying luck. Some cultures have garments that are even more complex than a simple dress, all with their own symbolic meaning.

Today, the wedding dress is still used to show a bride's social status. Celebrities and socialites turn to the world's most celebrated fashion designers to create their dresses. Wedding editions of tabloid magazines sell like hotcakes. Every upper-class bride wants to see pictures of her and her dress in print. Even brides who don't have quite that much to spend will go out of their way to get the "perfect dress" for their wedding day. While the dress is no longer used in the same way it once was, to signify worth, it continues to hold a great deal of symbolic meaning to brides all over the world.