When Queen Victoria tied the knot with Prince Albert in 1840, as shown in a period illustration, her choice of dress showed she approached her wedding day very differently to previous royal brides.

"All her advisers were suggesting red velvet robes and ermine and all the grand things of that earlier tradition," royal wedding dress curator Marschner said.

But Victoria, who wanted her marriage to be a personal event, not a political one, rejected royal protocol and opted instead for a simple—by royal standards of the era—ivory satin dress.

"It was the kind of dress well-brought-up girls up and down the country would wear," Marschner said.

"It may not be the first white wedding dress, but it is the first royal example," she added. "It made royal wedding fashions achievable for the general public."

Richter, of the Peabody Essex Museum, added the Queen Victoria's wedding "was as influential as Princess Diana's wedding in the early 1980s," in part due to Victoria's more accessible take on the royal wedding.

See Photos of Royal Wedding Dresses From Britain's Past

For centuries, British royal gowns have been about a lot more than fashion.