A Vietnamese guy recently asked me how long Europeans have worn white at weddings. I assumed it had been for hundreds of years, but wikipedia tells me it's more modern. On the other hand, I've read that the Romans and Greeks wore white wedding dresses (the same source claimed the Romans wore a wedding ring in the same place as modern women). Can someone tell me whether Greek and Roman weddings had white wedding dresses, and the same for medieval weddings? Also, whether it's true that we get our ring tradition from the Romans.
In England wearing white at your wedding symbolised that you came from a poor family. Most brides preferred colours such as gold or red gowns, or failing that heir best dress with flowers in her hair. However Queen Victoria decided to wear a white wedding dress on her wedding day to Prince Albert in 1840. which was them copied by all other brides in England and continues to this day.
The wearing white to symbolise sexual purity (i.e virginal white) is only as old as the white wedding dress tradition, prior to that to symbolise that you were a virgin on your wedding day a bride wore her hair loose rather than pinned up. Of course in today's society it is becoming more and more unlikely that a bride is a virgin on her wedding day, but the tradition of Bridal White remains.
As far as i know England has borrowed the wedding ring idea from the Romans (probably due to the Roman invasion into the Uk) as we place it on the wearers left fourth finger because it was thought that there was a vein which runs from that finger straight to your heart. During the 1600's King James decreed that a marriage was only legal if the bride had a wedding ring, this continues today, it being optional for the groom to wear one.