A new BBC documentary features Country Life’s much-loved frontispiece page as a starting point for an exploration of what comes next for the ‘girls in pearls’ after they get married.

On Wednesday October 20 on BBC2 at 9pm observational documentary series Wonderland continues, seeking out the people and places that offer a glimpse of today’s Britain that is usually hidden from view.

Country Life’s ‘girls in pearls’ have long been a conversation piece, the iconic page famously providing a never-ending source of fascination and a social record for more than a century of the changing expectations of women through war and peace-time.

High Society Brides, will follow the lives of five Frontispiece subjects, including Henrietta Tiarks, who became the Duchess of Bedford, and Kate Sackville- West, to find out whether the expectations of married life they held on the day they were photographed came to fruition.

Expect both heartbreaking and heartwarming stories in the programme, which airs on BBC 2 at 9pm on Wednesday, October 20. Next week in COUNTRY LIFE (October 20), Features Editor Flora Howard interviews the producer Hannah Berryman about her conclusions.