I just knew this thread was about FOOB before I even clicked on it! Nice to know that I wasn’t the only person confused about the sleeves. One minute they are there, the next minute, they are gone!
The white wedding as we know it (white one-wear-only dress, veil, etc.) really became common during the 1920s – about the same time as the man’s wedding ring, as a matter of fact. Prior to that, pageant-style weddings were limited to rich people – regular people had regular weddings – the brides wore their best dress (new, if they could afford it); sometimes with a party afterwards, sometimes not. But from the '20s on, the white wedding as we know it has become increasingly the norm. Even during the Depression, lots of regular people managed to scrape together the dinero for a Big White One. Bride’s magazine debuted in 1934.
The reason we see so many '40s brides in suits is because of the war – there were lots of short-notice weddings going on; fabric was being rationed, etc. But there were still plenty of brides in the '40s who managed to have weddings and wedding gowns. The fact that Jim & Marian were very poor when they started out wouldn’t have had anything to do with it – the couple didn’t pay for it. Her parents would have paid, and by the '40s it would have been quite common for parents to have saved money explicitly for that purpose.
So I don’t see any problem with the storyline (other than the fact that Liz is marrying the loathsome Anthony). Here is a scan of a late-'40s wedding gown which is very similar in style to the gown in the strip.
A lot of American women, before America entered the war, made wedding dresses for British war brides. It was one of those charity things you did to help those poor women overseas. Every so often I’ve seen a little human interest news story about one of those seamstresses meeting the couple and such.
perhaps the difference in the dresses are because it really isn’t the grandma they think it is.
it is the dress of the virgin bride who died in the war. she died before she could wear the dress, marry jim, and have THE wedding night. it was hidden in the crawl space because of bad luck, and jim married another, who turned out to be ellie’s mum, wearing a completely different dress.
now that lizardbeth has worn it and it has seen the light of day some one must die! but who??? who!!!
I had the same reaction when I saw that dress in FOOB. ‘So, what, Liz’s grandma just happened to wear a perfectly fashionable for today wedding dress in the 19-whatevers that they got married? Would they even have let her into church without her arms covered?’ I guessed 50s and googled, and the first image I found was of a strapless, sleeveless lace gown, so I guess it’s possible.
On the other hand, if grandma was a war era bride, there’s little chance she had such a voluminous white wedding dress. Didn’t they need that silk for parachutes?
If you look closer, though, the crawlspace dress does have sleeves – just sheer ones. And, as I said before, it’s quite similar to the late '40s dress I linked a picture of in my previous post. The sweetheart neckline was very popular in the '40s, and the bustle was just the train bustled up. The dress in my previous link had a train and would have been bustled for dancing and the reception.
Also, I checked the FBOW website and Jim and Marian are supposed to have met during the war, when both were in the Army. They married after the war was over, in Marian’s hometown. So her parents almost certainly paid for the wedding, including her dress. And that dress could easily have been homesewn. My mother’s wedding dress (from 1957) was lace over taffeta, and was made for her by a neighbor. It was a beautiful dress, but not terribly expensive.
However, it’s true that the earlier view of Marian’s dress doesn’t show at all the same dress as the one in the crawlspace. Johnston is either slipping on her continuity (entirely possible), or she purposefully changed the dress to something more acceptable to modern eyes.
