The Princess Diana wedding dress will always be one of the most iconic wedding dresses in the world. To celebrate the return of The Crown, which will focus on Diana and Charles’ wedding, here’s a guide to everything you need to know about it.
The wedding gown was created by Welsh designer duo Elizabeth and David Emanuel, who were married at the time, though divorced in 1990. Elizabeth later told Vogue they had no strict brief for the dress, as the Princess trusted them to create the perfect gown.
‘We had no guidelines or instructions, so we came up with this amazing, completely OTT gown that we knew would stand out on the steps of St Paul’s. It was all about drama and making Diana a fairytale princess,’ she said.
The dress was made of ivory taffeta and intricately embroidered with sequins, frilled lace, and 10,000 pearls. The antique lace was her ‘something old’ and spun at a British silk farm, and also included a bit of lace that once belonged to Queen Mary. She had an 18ct gold horseshoe charm sewn inside the gown as good luck, as well as a blue ribbon for her ‘something blue’. Her ‘something borrowed’ was the Spencer tiara, while the ‘something new’ was of course the dress.
While all these details theoretically mean the dress priceless, it was valued at £151,000 at the time of the wedding (1981), which is now said to be more around the £200k mark.
It’s customary for the Royal Family to pay for the core aspects of a wedding, for example the church service, the music, flowers, decorations, and the reception afterwards, and they have done so for Meghan Markle and Kate Middleton’s wedding.
The rest is usually footed by the bride herself or her family, so it’s thought Diana’s parents paid for her wedding dress, especially as she was young (only 19) at the time and wouldn’t have been earning a huge salary.
The train measured a whopping 25 feet, and coupled with the cathedral length veil, it was a sight to behold and a true fairytale wedding dress.
The average wedding dress is said to weight around 3kg, which is about 6lb, but we all know her dress wasn’t your average one. The 10,000 pearls alone would be quite heavy, and while no exact weight has been revealed by the designers, some experts have place it at around 20lb.
‘Why was Princess Diana’s wedding dress creased?’ is unbelievable one of the most googled questions surrounding Diana’s wedding dress. This is because, despite a rehearsal, the designers hadn’t factored in the fact that Diana would ride in the carriage with her father, or how big her dress had gotten, as the Princess apparently kept asking for a bigger train.
Diana’s wedding dress was displayed for a while at Althorp House, where she is buried, and it went on tour for a few years during the Diana: A Celebration exhibit, though it generally wasn’t part of the displays for long.
However, you’re not likely to see the dress IRL anytime soon, as it is now privately owned by her sons, Prince William and Prince Harry. This happened in 2014, as Princess Diana asked for her belongings to be given to them when they both turned 30.
The post Literally everything you need to know about Princess Diana's wedding dress appeared first on Marie Claire.
