Summer 2025
The Sag Harbor Historical Museum proudly presents its Summer 2025 exhibition: Wedding Dresses, 1840–1925 From Victorian Fashion to the Roaring 20s — a celebration of bridal fashion and the women of Sag Harbor and the East End who wore and donated these remarkable garments. Running from May through October to coincide with the height of the Hamptons’ wedding season, a prime wedding destination.
Before the 1840s, practicality and budget often dictated a bride’s choice of dress, which could be of any color—including black. It was Queen Victoria’s 1840 wedding to Prince Albert that helped popularize the white wedding gown, setting a precedent that continues to the present.
The exhibition opens with a striking black wedding gown from the 1840s, on loan from the Shelter Island History Museum, offering a rare glimpse into pre-Victorian bridal fashion. Also on view is a unique 1861 gown made from pineapple fiber, worn by the daughter of a Shelter Island whaling captain, and a photograph of Mary Gardiner Horsford’s 1877 Victorian wedding dress, courtesy of Sylvester Manor. The exhibit continues through the decades with an elegant Edwardian gown from 1912, and culminates in the sleek silhouette of a 1920s flapper wedding dress once worn by Sag Harbor resident Mary Matles.
The centerpiece of the show is a recreation of Annie Cooper Boyd’s late Victorian 1895 white silk wedding gown, meticulously crafted and recreated by Nancy’s Tailoring of Noyac. The Sag Harbor Historical Museum’s home is Annie Cooper Boyd’s house, which preserves Annie’s personal papers, paintings, and clothing. Annie, born in 1864 in Sag Harbor, married John Boyd of Brooklyn in 1895. Her recreated gown, with its extravagant late-Victorian sleeves, stands alongside her original wedding shoes, honeymoon photographs, letters, and diary entries—offering a deeply personal window into her life and times.
Wedding Dresses, 1840–1925, is more than a showcase of pretty dresses; it is an exploration of tradition, fashion, and the shifting roles of American women. Throughout the exhibit, visitors will see how wedding dresses reflected the changing styles and mores for women—from the practical and often colorful gowns of the pre-Victorian age, to the cinched waists and more restrictive dresses of the Victorian period, to the fluid empire shapes of the late Edwardian era, and the freer and more casual lines of the Roaring Twenties. Accompanying accessories—veils, gloves, shoes, floral bouquets, and underpinnings—further illuminate the evolving fashion and cultural expectations of women across seven transformative decades.
- Curators: Mary Jane Marcasiano and Alexandra McNear , Trustees
- Sponsors: Nancy’s Tailoring
- Collection Loans: Shelter Island Historical Museum, Sylvester Manor
- Historical Recreation Bouquets: Sag Harbor Florist
- Additional Historical pieces: Helen Uffner Vintage Clothing