Brides and weddings
Styles for weddings and the people in them. 5 hairstyles on EveryHairstyle so far.
Brides in almost every culture wear their hair specially dressed, and wedding hair often says that a woman is leaving girlhood. South Asian brides wear buns and plaits wreathed in jasmine and jewels; Japanese brides a traditional shimada under a white hood; Nigerian brides a towering gele; European brides a veil over an updo. Many grooms dress their hair or wear turbans for the day too.
Hair and marriage
In many cultures marriage changed a woman's hairstyle for good. In Russia a girl wore a single braid, and at her wedding it was undone and rebraided as two, the style of a married woman, before being covered. In Korea a bride's braid was put up into a chignon held by a binyeo. In Orthodox Judaism and many Muslim communities a married woman covers her hair. In many Hindu communities the parting is marked with red sindoor.
Bridal styles today
South Indian brides often wear a long plait covered in jasmine or a jewelled jadanagam; North Indian brides a bun with a maang tikka on the parting; Maharashtrian brides an ambada with a gajra. Japanese brides in Shinto weddings wear the bunkin takashimada, often as a wig, under the tsunokakushi hood. Western brides favour chignons, braided crowns and soft waves. Bridal hair is often done by professionals and rehearsed in a trial.
Famous brides and weddings hairstyles
Further reading
Photo credits on this page
The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.
- Tsunokakushi: Flickr user Photocapy, CC BY-SA 2.0, source
- Nihongami: 都新聞社 Miyako Shinbun, Public domain, source
- Head tie: Dili Osuhor ( Teemages ), CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- Russian braid: Philip Budkin, Public domain, source
- Chignon: www.GlynLowe.com, CC BY 2.0, source