In front of Spain's Royal Palace in Madrid last week during a teacher training tour.
I just got a call that my wedding dress has arrived and is ready for my fitting! Ahhh!
Not only is this thrilling, but it is also highly relevant to this article about royal palaces around the world. Why? Because my dress is white-ish, and so are most royal and governmental buildings in Europe and America! This is in sharp contrast to the bursting rainbow colors of Asian royal buildings and wedding dresses.
Doesn't Spain's Almudena Cathedral (across from the Royal Palace) make you hungry for vanilla cake?
Folks, I NEVER thought I would have a white-ish wedding dress, but isn’t the tug of one’s native culture powerful?
I always envisioned I would have some sort of red-green-blue-gold riot of a dress like the one I had made in Ghana. But WHITE? Yikes! I’ve never worn white in my life! Mostly because I eat a lot and spill everything, but also because I think white makes me look like a really tall egg. “Quack quack!” (Wait, I guess eggs don’t make noise.)
Anyway, flash back to last week when I was on a 5-day free teacher training tour through Madrid with EF Tours. During our wonderful and whirlwind sight-seeing, we had the pleasure of touring Spain’s Royal Palace, pictured here in these photos. I tell you, the whole time I couldn’t stop comparing colors, continentally.
The arches of the Royal Palace are lovely... and white-ish.
Ok, interactive time: Please click here now to open a new window with luscious photos of my tour of Thailand’s Royal Palace in Bangkok.
Whoa! Did your eyes just moisten with the joy of gold-green-purple-blue??? When I strode through Thailand’s Royal Palace in 2009, my heart danced, singing: “THIS is what a royal palace should be! COLOR! Sparklies!”
Back to Spain. And much of Europe and America. As ornate as the inner rooms of Western palaces may be, outwardly, “Regal” often equals: “White-ish.”
Frankly, the whole “White Architecture” thing makes me hungry for vanilla cake with buttercream frosting. Burp!
Spain's arches are like the folds of my wedding dress.
Back to wedding dresses. When my friend Louisa was married in China, her dress was Lipstick Red silk. Wowza! And I could probably rock out a red wedding dress, myself. So why did I ultimately choose white?
Well, for all my rainbow personality, it turns out that there’s something wonderfully comforting about nuzzling into the arms of my native Euro-American culture. And what’s crazy is I actually look good in my swirly white-ish dress! I will likely never wear white again in my life, so indeed this is a special occasion.
All right readers, weigh in: Comparing the photos of Spain’s white-ish Royal Palace and Thailand’s rainbow one, which do you prefer? Are you rarin’ to buy some Bangkok flights now, or a ticket to Madrid magic instead? And what’s YOUR take on wedding dress colors?
I prefer Thailand’s rainbow one because it is more colorful and very pretty, Spain’s Royal Palace is plain.
I am married and i understand the feeling of the bride when trying the wedding dress.
Nice article.
I think that a white dress is the best choice. A white wedding dress is the original color of the dress a woman wears during her wedding. The color also has history and looks great. I hope you have a great and the best wedding ever.
I can’t wait to see how you look in your wedding dress. Since you are a out going person, I would say you have a white dress when you take your wedding pictures (it look more formal and your parents would approve of it). When you are doing your wedding vows, I’d suggest you to wear your favorite color dress because it is your wedding.
If I ever get married, I’d probably choose a blue dress. I want to stand out and be unique! But that’s in the future, so I might change my mind.
One of my friends wore a blue dress and it was gorgeous! Unfortunately, it was an outdoor wedding and it rained, so she had to change out of her pretty shoes and into giant galoshes!
Wow!!!! You must of had a lot of fun!!!! The buildings look amazing!
That is so wonderful!
Wow! The buildings look like it was made out of soild gold. I wonder how much that will cost?
Are those temples or buildings actually solid gold?!
The Grand Palace in Bangkok is coated with gold paint. Not solid gold, but still a lot of gold!
I can imagine you wearing the dress right now! I barely wear white either, because I always dirty it on my first day.
OMG! I bet your dress is really pretty. I guess I could have gone for green or blue.
Urm..
Isn’t your wedding dress white?
The buildings are YELLOW!!
The buildings are, as I said, “White-ISH.” Perhaps they are a tad yellow, but most of what you’re seeing is the artistic sunlight glazing my photos
But if “artistic sunlight” makes it look yellow, how do you know it’s actually white?
Glad to see you enjoyed Madrid! The Royal Palace is beautiful, inside and out. However your second picture is labeled wrong. That is actually the Almudena Cathedral, right across the way from the Royal Palace. And it’s actually more colorful on the outside.
Also congrats on finding a wedding dress!
Amelie,
Good eye! I will fix the caption now. My point stays the same, though: Official and important buildings (palaces, cathedrals, offices) in Europe and America are lighter and tamer colored than those in Asia.
Thanks for the congrats!
Except for the Pena Castle from Portugal
Ah yes! My brother and I had great fun taking photos there: http://www.aroundtheworldl.com/2010/04/12/when-is-it-worth-it-to-splurge-on-a-package-day-tour-during-travel/
But that said… even the Pena Castle doesn’t have the VIBRANT, glitzy sparkles of Thailand’s Grand Palace!
Most Chinese brides choose two or more dresses, the white wedding dress (American and European style) for the wedding, the traditonal red Chinese dress for the party after the wedding and some other dresses of the brides’ choice. So you can choose two dresses! I would choose both of the palaces, because I like both European and Asian architecture. One of them could be a summer home or something. I think I would go traditional white for the wedding and wear red for the party because more colors means adding light to the event!
Qiyin, I love this!!!!
I love the Bangkok palace! (partly because out of the two it’s the one I haven’t seen yet). As for the wedding dress, what can I say? I married in white!
The pull of our culture is strong! You get some strange looks if you say to a shop clerk: “Hey, can I see your rainbow-colored wedding dresses?”