ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Wedding dress of Queen Victoria

Okay kiddo, have you ever seen a princess in a fairy tale wear a big, white poofy dress? Well, that's actually based on a real-life queen: Queen Victoria!

A long time ago, in the 1800s, Queen Victoria got married to a man called Prince Albert. They were both very important people and lots of other important people were gonna come to their wedding.

Queen Victoria had an idea for her wedding dress. She wanted it to be white, which was not a very common color to wear for weddings back then. She also wanted it to be made of this special fabric called Honiton lace, which was very expensive and fancy.

Queen Victoria's wedding dress had a very big skirt that puffed out like a balloon. It was so big that she had to hold it up with a special frame called a crinoline. Her dress also had a pretty train, which is a long piece of fabric that goes behind the dress.

The most special thing about Queen Victoria's wedding dress was that it had lots of things sewn onto it that had a special meaning to her. For example, she had some pretty flowers on it that meant "love" and "marriage." She also had a tiny pin from her mother, who she loved very much, sewn onto her dress.

Everybody thought Queen Victoria looked beautiful in her wedding dress. Lots of people liked the idea of wearing white dresses for their own weddings after they saw how pretty she looked. And now, many years later, lots of people still wear white dresses for their weddings just like Queen Victoria did!