On the morning of February 10, 1840, Queen Victoria — twenty years old, three years on the throne — married her first cousin Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha at the Chapel Royal of St. James's Palace, and quietly invented the modern wedding while she was at it. Royal weddings before Victoria had been small private ceremonies, often held late at night. Victoria insisted on a public procession through London so the people who had come to see her could actually see her, and she chose a white wedding dress — at the time an unusual choice for a bride. The white wedding dress became the standard for European and American brides within a generation, and remains so today, an entirely Victorian inheritance. Prince Albert, meanwhile, wore the uniform of a British Field Marshal, a rank Victoria had granted him as her personal wedding gift. This K&C set is a two-figure rendition of the bride and groom in their wedding dress: Victoria in white satin with the orange-blossom wreath and Honiton lace that became iconic, Albert in the scarlet, gold-trimmed full dress uniform of a British Field Marshal. The K&C sculptors worked from the abundant period documentation of the wedding — paintings, sketches, and detailed accounts — and the figures are unusual in the K&C catalog for being civilian/ceremonial rather than military: a Royal Wedding piece rather than a Royal Guards piece. They pair naturally with the British Guard Box for a royal ceremonial setting, and with the K&C Scots Guards Drummer and Drum Major for a complete royal procession display. 1/30 scale, matte-painted, two-figure set boxed. Catalog number TR001. As with the rest of the King & Country range, the painting captures period detail intended to read well in display.
