Depending on who you are, a fairytale wedding could look like a big celebration in the mountains, a small ceremony on the beach, or popping champagne on the steps of a courthouse. According to Lyst, most brides this year were darting off to faraway castles, or at least, they were opting for a regencycore wedding. The company’s data report found that regencycore was one of the top-performing bridalwear styles for those opting for a more maximalist ceremony. This trend follows the surge in everyday regencycore attire driven by films like Emma and TV shows like Bridgerton.
These book-to-screen adaptations reignited our cultural interest in the Regency period and ushered in a wave of corresponding imagery. Pinterest boards and Moodboard Twitter alike became deluged with imagery capitalizing on the romantic aesthetics associated with the era, which tracks considering the Regency Era and Romantic Period coincided between 1811 to 1820. The widespread imagery pictures sweethearts in poet’s tops relaxed in idyllic pastoral scenes, maiden ladies donning pouffy gowns in gilded ballrooms filled with suitors, love letters written by hand, and stolen moments between beloveds in luscious gardens. It’s passionate, tender, and visually captivating, which, for many brides, is exactly what a wedding should be.
The demand for regency style bridal wear indicates an uptick in appreciation for the regencycore aesthetic. Lyst reports that bridal corsets have increased +291% in year-on-year market demand. The company also reports that empire waist wedding dresses and embellished headpieces for weddings rose +133% and +156% respectively. Brands like the British Fashion House Vivienne Westwood caters to this uptick in regency styles well with her layered pearl necklaces and reimagined regency aesthetics. However, the designer’s clothing is being used in a more literal sense here than its original tongue-in-cheek sensibilities. Other items, like shawls, mini tiaras, and long gloves, also fall into the sartorial side of the regency aesthetic, which lends itself well to the scope of bridal wear.
By adopting the royalcore aesthetic into your ceremony, you’re associating its inherent romance with your relationship. The elaborate hair adornments, ornate empire waistline dresses, and bridal capes gesture to an idealized version of love and matrimony that has the power to elevate a ceremony into a fantastical “fairytale wedding.” And after a year of restrictions on large gatherings, it makes sense that brides would want to go all out on their wedding day and maximize it to royal proportions.
