China could be the first place where brides were likely to wear a specific color. During the reign of the Zhou Dynasty some 3,000 years ago, brides, as well as their bridegrooms both, donned sober black robes with red trim, worn on the visible white undergarment. The wearing of specific colors and fashions was not restricted to wedding dresses. Zhou rulers instituted strict clothing laws that dictated what could be worn, by whom, and so when, according to the profession, social caste, gender, and occasion. These rules remained in effect through the start of the Han Dynasty, around 200 B.C., when brides and bridegrooms still both wore black. The Hans were purportedly less strict in enforcing clothing edicts however prescribed that particular colors be worn at certain times of the year: green in spring, red in summer, yellow in autumn, and black in the winter months.

By the seventh century, throughout the reign of the Tang Dynasty, with clothing edicts further loosened, it became fashionable for brides to put on green for their weddings—perhaps like a nod towards the springtime clothing from the previous Han period—while their bridegrooms typically wore red. A more relaxed social order resulted in more different and experimental fashions, with females wearing short dresses as well as traditional menswear in their daily lives. The Tang Dynasty ruled in a period of much immigration and cultural influence that flowed from China to both Japan and also the Korean peninsula, and also the fashion influences in the Tang period can nonetheless be seen in some traditional Japanese and Korean bridal fashions today, in color as well as in form.