Warning: Spoilers ahead for Beetlejuice Beetlejuice!
Beetlejuice 2 Horrified a key moment of Tim Burton’s 1988 movie by putting Lydia Dets in another red wedding dress with a deeper meaning than one might think. As part of the original BeetlejuiceFinally, Winona Ryder’s Lydia reluctantly agrees to marry Betelgeuse to save Adam and Barbara. Michael Keaton’s sleazy bio-exorcist jumped at the chance without hesitation, transforming his soon-to-be teenage bride and changing her outfit into wedding attire. See how Beetlejuices characters have never been concerned with traditional norms, it felt right for someone like Lydia to wear a blood-red dress.
Beetlejuice 2 Makes many references to the original movie, including clever nods to the 1988 movie’s memorable wedding sequence. In the sequel, Betelgeuse tries to marry Lydia a second time before his plan is thwarted once again by tricky netherworld rules. Still, when he forces Lydia up to the altar as part of Beetlejuice 2s “MacArthur Park” sequence, she wore another bright red wedding dress. Although fitting, especially along with the return of Betelgeuse’s maroon suit, the color red has a clever connection to the characters.
Lydia’s red wedding dresses are based on an old saying about death and marriages
Death is always a factor in Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice movies
Lydia’s red wedding dresses in both Beetlejuice Movies can be linked to an old wedding superstition that says, “Married in red, you will wish yourself dead.” This line is part of a traditional marriage rhyme, which offers future predictions about a couple’s fate depending on the color of a wedding dress. Here’s the full rhyme and what the different colors of wedding dresses mean in some cultures:
“Wedding in white, you will have chosen all right.
Married in gray, you will go far.
Married in black, you will wish yourself back.
Married in red, you will wish yourself dead.
Married in blue, you will always be true.
Married in a pearl, you will live in a verb.
Married in green, ashamed to see.
Married in yellow, ashamed of this guy.
Married in Brown, you will live out of town.
Married in pink, your mood will sink.”
Lydia wears red wedding dresses in both Beetlejuice Movies perfectly represent the old saying. “Wish yourself dead“is a hope for death, implying that the red color predicts that the husband will die first, and the wife will wish for death to reunite the couple in the afterlife. In Lydia’s case, Betelgeuse is already dead and bound for the afterlife in both movies but marriage was something of a death sentence for Lydia. Whether the couple was in the realm of the living or the netherworld, marrying Betelgeuse was probably considered worse than death for Lydia.
The original Beetlejuice costume designer wanted Lydia and Barbara’s wedding dresses to be “outrageous.”
Costumes have become a large part of Beetlejuice’s lasting legacy
Considering Lydia’s red wedding dress became an iconic look to come out of Burton’s 1988 movie, it’s no surprise to see an updated version in the sequel. The original movie’s costume designer, Aggie Guerard Rodgers, spoke (via Everyone) about the wedding dresses featured in the ’80s film, which included the memorable red dress and a more traditional white dress worn by Geena Davis’ Barbara in Beetlejuice. Rodgers admitted that she sought “Outrageous and stupid” dresses to fit the offbeat vibe of the movie.
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With samples from a local bridal shop and input from Tim Burton, the color red was chosen over the traditional white, which signifies purity and innocence. The circumstances surrounding the wedding certainly helped to control the “Scandal” company in connection with the chosen outfit. In doing so, Rodgers ended up helping propel Lydia, and Ryder for that matter, to become a young style icon. The Gothic aesthetic became synonymous with Lydia and carried on when Beetlejuice 2 Came with 36 years later.
Source: Everyone