Tuesday, 30 January 2018

The bride wore what? Gasp!...

 ...by Heidi Catherine

When Mary Queen of Scots wore white to her wedding in 1559, she caused quite a stir in the French Court.  At that time, white was a colour used by royalty for mourning.  But white was her favourite colour and that was what she insisted on (and given she didn’t seem to have had too much say in who she married, I can’t say I blame her).
But this trend didn’t really catch on until Queen Victoria wore white to her wedding more than 300 years later.  Strangely, I’d never really thought of Queen Victoria as a trendsetter, but there you go.  And here I was thinking that white was chosen by brides as a symbol of purity.
I really enjoyed researching bridal dresses when writing my novel, The Soulweaver.  The book has a multicultural feel to it, with part of it set in Hong Kong.  When my main character, Lin, gets married, she most certainly doesn’t wear white, instead opting for red – a more traditional choice for a girl of her cultural background.  Here’s a short excerpt from the story:

Lin would wear the red gown her mother had worn on her own wedding day.  It was a gown Lin had often tried on as a girl, parading around their small apartment as if she were Queen of China.  She loved the feel of the silk against her skin and would run her small hands over the smooth lines of the dress, as she admired the way the delicate gold leaf pattern wound its way from her shoulders to the folds of fabric bunched at her feet.  She’d longed to be tall enough, with curves in the right places, to do the dress justice.
Now here she stood at eighteen years of age, certainly tall enough.  And the way colour rose to Reinier’s cheeks when he saw her at the registry office, she knew she had the curves as well.

Have you ever been to a wedding where the bride wore a colour other than white?  If you’re married, did you wear white to your wedding?  I did, but I never really stopped to wonder why.  I had no idea I was following in royal footsteps.  Who knows, perhaps in another 300 years brides will all be wearing black!

about the book...  She’s loved and lost him a hundred times across a thousand years. She can’t bear to lose him again.
Lin’s dreams are haunted by faces of people she’s never met. Unable to shake the feeling she’s lived before, she’s drawn to Reinier—a stranger whose soul is heartbreakingly familiar from a time gone by.
Reinier helps Lin unravel the mystery of her past life as Hannah, a girl who sacrificed herself for her true love, Matthew. As Lin falls hopelessly in love with Reinier, her memories of her life as Hannah sharpen and she finds herself unable to let go of Matthew.
With her heart torn in two, Lin must decide whether she should stand by Reinier’s side or track down Matthew and fight for his love. What she doesn’t know is that her decision will ripple across our troubled planet, affecting far more lives than just her own.
Winner of Romance Writers of Australia’s Emerald Pro award, The Soulweaver is a story that will change the way you see the world.
The Soulweaver is available for order now.  A free prequel novellette called The Moonchild, which introduces you to two of the main characters from The Soulweaver in the lifetime they lived before the book takes place is available for download.

about the author...  Heidi Catherine can be found on FacebookTwitter or on her website.

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