V&A Wedding Dresses 1775-2014 Exhibition

Excellent exhibition with a wonderful selection of wedding dresses, shoes and accessories, plus lots of information to go with the exhibits as well. The perfect way to spend a girlie Friday evening!!

This was a beautiful exhibition. The chronological layout was slightly confusing in places but to see so many exquisite, original dresses was wonderful. The descriptions and explanations were very thorough and interesting. Overall, this was a really enjoyable display which was excellent value for money.

Well presented display and the exhibition was not over full despite being fully booked.

You could get close to the exhibits and inspect in detail.

The historic movie wedding clips bought back many memories.

This is a wonderful exhibition which evokes memories and a wonderful sense of tradition. I love the mix of old and fairly new. Some wonderful pieces. I went with three friends and we had great discussion on which were our favourites. May have to go back

These dresses are beautifully displayed and brought back a lot of memories.

I really liked the wedding dress worn by Lady Sarah Armstrong-Jones.

Love Theatre was very efficient with acquiring tickets for me to see this display and I would recommend them again

I’ve been to a few of the recent V&A special exhibitions. British Ballgowns was terrific, Grace Kelly was truly superb, David Bowie extraordinary. The latest exhibit, Wedding Dresses 1775 – 2014, is fabulous. It includes some surprises – Camilla Duchess of Cornwall’s outfit was unexpected, as were the dresses on loan from Kate Moss, Dita Von Teese and Gwen Stefani. Also featured is one of the wedding dresses that “Carrie” wore in the film *** & The City (word banned :) ) for the supposed article in Vogue. Also in the display is the infamous dress designed by Bruce Oldfield and worn by Lisa Butcher in her short marriage – almost a row at the altar about the dress didn’t bode well for the marriage.

Also featured is great video from Royal Weddings – Prince Albert and Lady Elizabeth Bowes Lyons (later King George and Queen Elizabeth), Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Princess Margaret and Anthony Armstrong-Jones, Lady Diana Spencer and Prince Charles and Prince William and Catherine Middleton. Note – none of these dresses are included in this exhibition although I have been lucky enough to see a number of these dresses at past Buckingham Palace Summer Opening exhibitions. Yeah, I’m a fan of the wedding dress.

A very special mention must be given to the jaw-dropping, glorious 1920's dress of Miss Margaret Whigham in her wedding to Mr Charles Sweeny, designed by Norman Hartnell. In a display case of its own this dress, with a beautiful train, wonderful beading and of a design that could easily be worn today, is supported by a short video of crowds outside the Brompton Oratory as the couple leave.

Additionally there are small displays of headdresses, veils, shoes and bags. There are a small number of older dresses giving a short history of dresses and designs through the years. The real glory of this exhibition are the gowns themselves, case after case, display upon display of fabulous gowns. Surprisingly, for a very wet Bank Holiday Monday, the queues were nothing like I’ve seen for past exhibits; booking online beforehand guarantees entry though and no queue! Runs to 15 March 2015.

I was very disappointed with the Wedding Dresses exhibition for a number of reasons. It is quite small, very hot and crowded and the layout is not helpful. It is not always clear which order you should see the exhibits and the descriptions of the dresses are not always clearly aligned with the dresses themselves. The dresses are displayed in such a way that you often have to walk on both sides of the glass case to see them all and this is annoying, especially as you end up walking backwards and forwards, crossing the paths of other people along the way. You seem to be forever in someone's way, and they are always in yours!

The exhibition starts off by explaining that Queen Victoria's wedding dress marked a significant moment in the history of wedding dress traditions, but frustratingly there was no photograph, drawing or description of this, apparently iconic, dress.

There is a short (?5 minute) film of five royal weddings-this is great but it causes a huge bottleneck in the exhibition as everyone stops to watch. Why not put this in a separate area?

The dresses themselves seem to have been picked at random from the different eras - there was little sense that the dresses on display were typical or groundbreaking in any way. Some time periods seem to have been sidelined while others were emphasized. I only came away with a very general sense of how wedding dresses have evolved over time. There has been a great deal of hype about this exhibition, but it's not at all justified. If it was free, it would be fine, you wouldn't mind passing half an hour or so looking at a fairly random selection of wedding dresses, but it's expensive and deeply frustrating.

Loved the variety of dresses and particularly historic film footage/photos of people wearing these outfits. Found descriptions of items informative and interesting, but would have liked more background social history about marriage/weddings, trends (other than wedding dresses)e.g. bouquet styles, how church/civil weddings have changed and evolved in terms of style and law etc, and cost of dresses.

Good inspiration style-wise for anyone getting married soon.

The display prompted lots of discussion amongst visitors about their wedding experiences.

Went on a Saturday afternoon - busy but not overly-crowded.

This exhibition is well designed for seeing all sides of the lovely dresses. Timed ticketing made it not overcrowded. A lift to the upper floor was great for those with mobility problems. Staff were cheerful. V&A is my favourite museum anyway and this is a must-see exhibition.

Found the exhibition well presented.My wife enjoyed the presentation of wedding dresses,we'll definitely recommend this to our friends and relatives. We'll done to all concerned