Page - 14 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 04/02

Editorial | 13www.jrfm.eu 2018, 4/2, 7–21 Austria11(and, we would argue, also in the rest of Europe) are designed by paid wedding planers as idealistic and individualistic rituals, the sequence that is fol- lowed in the preparation and the ritual itself is highly standardized, although open to individual adaptions.12 Tradition and innovation are manifoldly intertwined. Here we understand tradition as essentially something constructed and passed down from one gen- eration to the next (the Latin traditio means transmission) and innovation as something thought of as new to a specific context. In defining tradition and innovation, we stress that the concepts are fluid. Such measurement of time is processual and messy: innovative elements can also be old, and what is at one point innovative can subsequently become traditional. One example of such change – to come back to weddings – is the white bridal gown. Before the 19th century wedding gowns for the rich were mostly colourful, those for the poorer often black (fig. 10). Both groups wore their Sunday best, clothes that were not worn only for the wedding.13 The white bridal dress was made popular by Queen Victoria,14 who wore a white-lace court dress at her wedding to Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha in 1840. That decision was widely debated by her contemporaries, and while not exceptional, it was unusual. Although the queen’s choice in bridal gown subsequently became fashionable, we still com- monly find coloured and black wedding dresses worn up until the 1940s (and even later). Today a black bridal gown is seen as innovative and can become a topic for discussion.15 11 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j51O4lf232w [accessed 29 June 2018]. 12 Schäffler 2012, 71–101. 13 Beautiful examples of such dresses can be found in Wiswe 1990. 14 See Schäffler 2012, 75 (misleadingly Schäffler speaks of “Princess Victoria”, but Victoria was already queen by the time of her wedding; she reigned from 1837 until her death in 1901). 15 See, for example, a clip from the TV reality soap Say Yes to the Dress where the bride wants a black dress, but her mother hates it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyKxxZeIU_w [accessed 3 Au- gust 2018]. Fig. 9: Kingdom Gospel Choir performs at the wedding of Meghan Markle and Price Harry (PBS, News Hour, 21 May 2018, 00:38:50).11