Princess Diana and Prince Charles divorced in 1996 just a year before her death in the August of 1997. This season of The Crown will depict the heir to the throne’s marriage to then Lady Diana Spencer and the subsequent fall out.
What was Princess Diana’s wedding dress like?
Diana’s wedding dress is perhaps the most iconic wedding dress of all time. In true 1980s style, the dress was an enormous, voluminous gown made of ivory taffeta and antique lace.
It was designed by husband and wife duo Elizabeth and David Emanuel. Diana instructed the designers to give her longest train of a royal wedding dress in history, and so her gown was 25ft long.
A small blue was sewn into the waist band to represent something blue in the famous wedding rhyme. For the “something old” Diana looked to the antique lace on her dress from a British silk farm.
At the time the dress, which was decorated with 10,000 real pearls, was estimated to be worth £9,000 or around £35,000 today. Princess Diana’s veil was made of ivory silk tulle, a more simple affair than the dress.
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What was Princess Diana’s wedding tiara like?
Another something old was Diana’s wedding tiara, which was her family tiara. Many questioned why Diana did not wear the Cambridge Lover’s Knot Tiara supposedly offered to her by the Queen for her wedding day with some suggesting the reason is the piece made of platinum was far too heavy.
However, it is actually the done thing in aristocratic families for a bride to wear her own family’s tiara and then wear the tiaras from her husband’s family after the wedding.
The Spencer tiara is a scroll style tiara, meaning the shape features curves curling towards the top of the head, like folded scrolls. The tiara was given to the family as a wedding present in 1919 to a Lady Cynthia Hamilton. It features stars and floral motifs.
For her wedding perfume Diana wore Quelques Fleurs from Houbigant. The now iconic scent features bergamot, galbanum, tuberose, Lily of the Valley and Oakmoss, among other scents.
It is described by Houbigant as being “ethereal and courtly”, full of “soft, sensual, voluptuous flowers”.
Diana held a bouquet full of Lily of the Valley, Earl Mountbatten roses, freesia, veronica, ivy, myrtle, trasdescantia, gardenias, stephanotis and odontolglossum orchid.
Diana’s make-up on the day was done by Barbara Daly, who ran Barbara Daly Makeup and Beauty Therapy School in Chelsea from 1978. She did a number of British Vogue covers including December 1974 featuring model Twiggy.
What happened to Princess Diana’s wedding ring?
Princess Diana’s engagement ring was from Garrad and Diana chose he ring herself from a catalogue, a very unusual move.
The sapphire, diamond and white gold ring was bought in 1981 and cost £28,500, which in today’s money equates to over £100,000.
The ring was inherited by Prince Harry when, after Diana’s tragic death in 1997, he and his brother Harry were given the option to choose an item from her belongings to keep as a momento of her.
When Prince William made his intentions to propose to longterm girlfriend Kate Middleton clear, Harry offered him the ring to propose with. And so, decades later, Diana’s ring became another woman’s engagement ring – the woman who would have been her daughter-in-law had the course of history been different.
In attendance at Diana’s wedding were a number of important royals and aristocrats. All of Europes royals attended besides the King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofía of Spain because Charles and Diana were due to stop in British territory Gibraltar on their honeymoon, a disputed territory.
Many of Europes presidents attended as did US First Lady Nancy Reagan.
For her bridesmaids and pageboys Diana had a number of attendants.
They included Lord Nicholas Windsor, Edward van Cutsem, Lady Sarah Armstrong-Jones, India Hicks, Catherine Cameron, Sarah-Jane Gaselee and Clementine Hambro.
Royal weddings: Meghan, Kate and Eugenie
Meghan Markle
Who: His Royal Highness Prince Harry and Meghan Markle (now the Duke and Duchess of Sussex)
Where: St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle
When: 19 May 2018, Berkshire
Dress: Meghan wore a dress designed by Clare Waight Keller for Givenchy. The white dress was made of silk and had a boat neckline. The veil was an incredible 16 feet long.
Tiara: The Duchess of Sussex chose the Queen Mary diamond bandeau tiara, made in 1932, with a flower brooch in the middle from 1893.
Cake: The cake was made by Claire Ptak, based in London. It was lemon and elderflower cake, decorated with peonies and buttercream icing.
Notable guests: A-list guests included James Corden, tennis player Serena Williams, the Beckhams, Sir Elton John, George and Amal Clooney and Carey Mulligan and Marcus Mumford.
Princess Eugenie
Who: Princess Eugenie of York and Jack Brooksbank
Where: St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, Berkshire
When: 12 October 2018
Dress: Eugenie’s dress was made by Peter Pilotto and Christopher de Vos and had a full skirt, long sleeves and was ivory in colour. The dress has a low back designed to show Euegnie’s scar from scoliosis surgery, a cause she has spoken out about in the past and since the wedding.
Tiara: She wore the stunning Greville Emerald Kokoshnik Tiara, lent to her by the Queen. It has a huge emerald in the middle.
Cake: The cake had five tiers and was a red velvet and chocolate cake made by London-based cake designer Sophie Cabot.
Notable guests: Famous faces at the wedding included Robbie Williams, Naomi Campbell, Kate Miss, Jack Whitehall and Liv Tyler.
Kate Middleton
Who: Prince William and Kate Middleton
Where: Westminster Abbey, London
When: 29 April 2011
Dress: Kate wore a dress made by Sarah Burton for Alexander McQueen. The satin gown featured long lace sleeves. It had a nine foot train and the lace featured roses, daffodils, thistles and shamrocks.
Tiara: Kate borrowed the Cartier Scroll Tiara, now known as the Halo tiara. It was bought by the Queen’s father, the future King George VI, for his wife Elizabeth.
Cake: William and Kate opted for a traditional fruit cake with eight tiers. It was decorated with sugar flowers. William also had an additional chocolate biscuit cake was made from a Royal Family recipe.
Notable guests: Guests included family and friends of the couple, as well as members of the military and people who work with charities the pair support.