A wedding in August, outdoors, at thirty-five degrees. The bride in a veil. Anyone who has been to a wedding like that knows how it ends: the veil comes off after half an hour and one of the witnesses carries it over an arm for the rest of the day.

In Andalusia they came up with a different solution, and not a new one - the Cordoban hat. A wide stiff brim, a low cylindrical crown, in white, in natural tones or in the classic greyish shade. It works in the sun and in photographs, and it does not need anyone to hold it.

Why this works better than a veil

This is not a fashion whim. The hat is a practical object that predates the trend by several centuries, which is exactly why it does not look like a prop. Brides who wear it do not wear it instead of the veil - most often they combine them: veil for the church, hat for the reception. That split solves both the ceremony and the rest of the day, rather than choosing one at the expense of the other.

María and Alejandro married at the González Byass wineries in Jerez de la Frontera. The bride wore a champagne-coloured satin dress from Mónica Calles's studio - minimalism, long sleeves, a lowered neckline - and on her head a white Cordoban hat, with a choker, button-shaped earrings and carnations beside her upswept hair.

When the object has a previous history

What makes this trend more than aesthetics is that the hats are usually not bought for the wedding. Lorena says it plainly: „I have worn them since childhood and I could not miss wearing one on my wedding day.” Hers - a wide brim, a low cylindrical crown in dark grey with a blue band - she bought on a trip to Córdoba. She had worn it to a wedding near Bilbao, pregnant, with a long-sleeved tunic and a cape.

Pati found hers in a hat shop on the Plaza Mayor in Madrid, where she had walked past before. Andrea bought hers in a local shop in Alicante. Not one of these pieces was ordered from a bridal catalogue, and it shows.

This part is closer to us than we think. Every Macedonian wedding has at least one item with a previous life - a grandmother's brooch, a mother's shoes, embroidery from a chest. The only difference is that here the object is a hat and it is named after a city.

It works when the dress is not white either

A bride from Málaga wore a romantic dress from the Santa Eugenia atelier, with a veil during the ceremony and then a beige Cordoban hat with brown details - a solution that works with every tone that is not pure white: raw, champagne, ivory. Nuria, whose dress was designed by Victoria Salas, wore a white hat with black details by Roberto Garrudo, with her hair gathered low.

Some brides choose it for the whole day. The designer Sandra Freculd married at the Aguas de Villaharta spa complex outside Córdoba, in a fitted backless white dress with ruffled sleeves, with an all-white Cordoban hat from the Miranda hat shop and a bouquet of long-stemmed carnations.

What they all have in common is that the hat is not an accessory hanging off an outfit but an object with a function. For a wedding in August - anywhere in the Balkans, not only in southern Spain - that is a stronger recommendation than any seasonal trend.