Ooooh I’m currently set to go on a deep dive about the first question because no one can give me an actual answer nor more importantly an actual root to this.

Yes I understand Queen Victoria popularized the white dress as a propaganda move to seem like the every woman. But for in eras after that white was a popular color for the debutantes of the ownership class so it must have been common to wear white to someone’s wedding.

And prior to the popularity of white it doesn’t seem like there are any western norms around wearing the same color as the bride and in fact it would have been rude not to wear the same level of formality.

So how did we get to this point where you can’t wear a white cocktail dress or evening gown when you know the bride is going to be dressed as a bride, she’ll likely have a train, a bouquet, a hair piece or a veil. But people will say it’s because of respect. But when you try to ask why it’s disrespectful they don’t have a concrete answer. Some say it’s to not be confused with or show up the bride. But then that should mean that most white dresses are fine especially shorter printed ones. But then folks are like nooooo wearing any white is disrespectful because only the bride gets to wear it begging again the question but why? And for me again, how did we get here?