Queen Alexandrina Victoria, of the House of Hanover, and her marriage to Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Cotha brought great influence to today’s traditional wedding culture. While Contemporary times might now refer to these as “traditional,” the white dress, the towering ostentatious wedding cakes, the lace adorned mantillas- were all original for The Monarch’s day. Her desire to assign meaning into the symbolism of her dress was her own expression of purity and of her decision to invoke diplomacy with the silk and lace industry craftsmen & merchants of the day.
“I wore a white satin dress, with a deep flounce of Honiton lace, an imitation of an old design. My jewels were my Turkish diamond necklace & earrings & dear Albert’s beautiful sapphire brooch.”
The resulting end: A cream satin dress woven in the Spitalfields, known as an historic center of the silk industry in London, and handmade Honiton lace. While there is no sure proof that the intricate pattern made for her lace was destroyed to avoid copying, it would not be unheard of. Proper Victorian lace artisanship was socially & culturally accepted as a form of personal wealth and status, adorning the upper bodice of women of both royalty and gentry and often viewed as signature expressions of style. The gown and wreath atop her head- in place of the Monarch’s crown- were adorned with orange blossoms, followed by an 18-foot-long train.
Victoria and Albert’s featured cake weighed in at three hundred pounds and measured nearly nine feet in diameter. It was appropriately made of fruitcake, “the most exquisite compounds of all the rich things with which the most expensive cakes can be composed, mingled and mixed together into delightful harmony.” The tradition of fruitcake served at Royal weddings stemmed from the excess of the Victorian era- the desire and show of one’s riches, as it contained the finest fruits, soaked in only the most expensive liquors- not accessible by the common class.
A pastillage sculptural masterpiece was created by her head Chef and Baker, Monsieur Charles Elmé Francatelli, who received his training in France and served multiple noblemen of the time. The cake featured figures of the bride and groom in ancient Greek costume, as well as orange blossoms and myrtle that matched Victoria’s wreath crown. This sculptural topper set the pace for an architectural tradition found in many cakes of its era.
The cake was divided into thousands of thimble-size pieces- each contained in a glass box. The box, inscribed with “The Queen’s Bridal Cake Buckingham Palace, Feby 10, 1840,” was accompanied by a letter of authenticity and a handwritten note that read, “To dream upon,” signed by The Queen. Tradition, and to some degree superstition, dictated that if an unmarried subject placed the small prized remnant underneath her pillow, one day her marriage mate would also come. This influenced the modern-day tradition of what we now consider gifting favors or parting gifts to wedding guests.
A silvered box with a glass top containing a piece of cake from Queen Victoria’s wedding party. Brooklyn Museum Collection. Credit Fred R. Conrad for the New York Times.
In a stunning 2016 auction event, a surviving slice of the cake was sold by Jersey collector David Gainsborough Roberts, and auctioned off by Christie’s for approximately $2,100. Now that’s an expensive slice of cake!
“I never, never spent such an evening! My dearest dear Albert sat on a footstool by my side, and his excessive love and affection gave me feelings of heavenly love and happiness I never could have hoped to have felt before. He clasped me in his arms, and we kissed each other again and again! His beauty, his sweetness and gentleness, really how can I ever be thankful enough to have such a Husband! Oh! This was the happiest day of my life!”
Replica wedding cake for the BBC documentary about Queen Victoria and Albert’s wedding day, made by Smiths the Bakers of Norfolk. Photos of the final cake and it being made, with its final placing in Holkham Hall for filming.
Works Cited
- Slice of Queen Victoria’s wedding cake sold at auction. BBC News, 15 September 2016, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-jersey-37373425#:~:text=A%20slice%20of%20Queen%20Victoria’s,Jersey%20collector%20David%20Gainsborough%20Roberts. Accessed July 2020.
- Wilson, Carol. Wedding Cake: A Slice of History. Gastronomica Magazine. Spring 2009. 69-72.
- Souvenir of Queen Victoria’s Wedding. The New York Times, 9 April 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/10/nyregion/souvenir-of-queen-victorias-wedding.html. Accessed July 2020.
