The term picture bride refers to the practice in the early 20th century of immigrant workers (chiefly Japanese, Okinawan, and Korean) in Hawaii and the West Coast of the United States and Canada, as well as Brazil selecting brides from their native countries via a matchmaker, who paired bride and groom using only photographs and family recommendations of the possible candidates. This is an abbreviated form of the traditional matchmaking process and is similar in a number of ways to the concept of the mail-order bride.

In the late 19th century, Japanese, Okinawan, and Korean men traveled to Hawaii as cheap labor to work on the sugarcane plantations. Some continued on to work on the mainland. These men had originally planned to leave plantation work and go back home after a few years or a contract was up. Between the years of 1886 and 1924, 199,564 Japanese entered Hawaii and 113,362 returned to Japan. However, many men did not make enough money to go back home. Also, in 1907 the Gentlemen's Agreement prohibited immigration from Hawaii to the mainland United States for laborers. Because now these men were put in situations with limited mobility, they had to make Hawaii or the mainland United States their home, and part of that was getting married. In Hawaii, the plantation owners also wanted to see the laborers get married. Though they had originally preferred single men, when the contract labor system was abolished, the owners thought that wives would make the men more likely to settle down and stay. Also, the plantation owners hoped that wives would limit the amount of gambling and opium smoking the workers did, and act as a morale booster for the men.

There were many factors that influenced women to become picture brides. Some came from poor families, so they became picture brides for economic reasons. They thought that they would come upon economic prosperity in Hawaii and the continental United States, and could send back money to their families in Japan and Korea. There is evidence suggesting that picture brides were not infrequently educated at the high school or college level and were thus more emboldened to seek out new opportunities abroad. Others did it out of obligation to their families. Because the marriages were often facilitated by parents, the daughters felt they could not go against their parents' wishes. One former picture bride recounted her decision: "I had but remote ties with him yet because of the talks between our close parents and my parents' approval and encouragement, I decided upon our picture-bride marriage." There is, however, little to no indication that the brides were sold to their husbands by their families.

Some women became picture brides in an attempt to escape familial duties. They thought that by leaving Japan or Korea they could get out of responsibilities such as filial piety that came along with traditional marriage. Some women thought that they would gain freedoms denied to them in Japan and Korea. A quote from a Korean picture bride named Mrs. K embodies the mindset of many picture brides traveling to Hawaii, "Hawaii's a free place, everybody living well. Hawaii had freedom, so if you like talk, you can talk, if you like work, you can work." With the influx of women becoming picture brides, some women followed the trend as the thing to do. As one Japanese picture bride, Motome Yoshimura, explained, "I wanted to come to the United States because everyone else was coming. So I joined the crowd."

These Japanese, Okinawan, and Korean women got the name picture brides because the men in Hawaii and mainland United States sent pictures back to their home countries in order to find a bride. Family members, often with the help of a go-between (called a nakōdo (仲人) in Japanese and a jungmae jaeng-i in Korean), used these photos to try to find wives for men who sent them. When looking at prospective brides the go-betweens looked at the family background, health, ages and wealth of the women. The process of picture bride marriage was modeled after traditional arranged marriage (called miai kekkon (見合い結婚) in Japanese and jungmae gyeolhon in Korean). Picture bride marriage was not much different from these arranged marriage customs, except instead of the man having little role he had no role. Once the bride's name was entered into her husband's family registry, the marriage was considered official in Japan, and she was eligible for travel documents to the U.S. However, even though this was sufficient in their home countries, it was not considered a valid form of marriage by the American government. Because of this, mass wedding ceremonies were held at the dock or in hotels subsequent to the brides' arrival.

The Gentlemen's Agreement of 1907 stopped the issuance of passports to Japanese laborers trying to go to continental America or Hawaii. However, there was a loophole in the agreement that allowed wives and children to immigrate to be with their husbands and fathers. It was because of this loophole that so many picture brides were able to immigrate to the United States. The impact of the Gentlemen's Agreement is evident in the population percentage of men and women before and after it was issued. For example, 86.7 percent of Japanese admitted to U.S. prior to Gentlemen's Agreement were men, though after the agreement only 41.6 percent of the Japanese admitted were men. By 1897, the Japanese were known as the largest single ethnic group in Hawaii, consisting of 40 percent of the population by the year 1900. Between 1907 and 1923 14,276 Japanese picture brides and 951 Korean picture brides arrived in Hawaii.

Likewise, Korean immigration to Hawaii was halted by Japan after Korea's new status as a Japanese protectorate in 1905. Picture brides, however, were an exception. While the ethnic Korean labor force could no longer enter the U.S. from Hawaii in 1907, by 1910 groups of picture brides from Korea had begun immigrating to the West Coast. In 1910, Korean men outnumbered women ten to one within the United States. By 1924 the population of Korean women had grown, the numbers reaching three men to one woman. This was due to many Korean girls already within the U.S. borders reaching marriage age, as well as the arrival of between 950 and 1,066 brides. Between 1908 and 1920 over 10,000 picture brides arrived on the West Coast of the United States.

It was a rough journey for the picture brides. When they first arrived, they were required to go through numerous inspections at the immigration station. The United States government did not recognize picture marriages as being legal; therefore, the picture brides would meet their soon-to-be husbands for the first time and attend a mass wedding ceremony on the docks. Many of these women were surprised at what they found upon arrival. Most of what the women knew about their husbands before meeting them was based on the photos they had sent. However, the images presented did not always represent the men's real lives. Men would send photos back to Japan and Korea that were retouched, old, or of different men completely. Men often wore borrowed suits and chose to pose with luxury items, such as cars and houses, that they did not actually own.