Princess Diana and Prince Charles married on July 29, 1981
Credit: Anwar Hussein/WireImage
NEED TO KNOW
- Princess Diana and the future King Charles wed on July 29, 1981
- 3,500 people attended the ceremony at St. Paul’s Cathedral
- Their nuptials cost roughly $48 million
More than four decades later, Princess Diana and Prince Charles’ wedding remains one of the most iconic royal events in history for a number of reasons.
The grand nuptials broke records and traditions as 750 million people across 74 countries tuned in to watch a British citizen marry an heir to the throne for the first time in 300 years on July 29, 1981, at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, per Hello!. Their extravagant wedding — which carried a price tag of about $48 million (equivalent to roughly $180 million today) — was seemingly a dream come true for the bride.
“I remember being so in love with my husband that I couldn’t take my eyes off him,” she later told Andrew Morton for his 1992 book, Diana: Her True Story in Her Own Words. “I just absolutely thought I was the luckiest girl in the world. He was going to look after me.”
The groom was also full of optimism, reportedly writing in a letter to a friend, per Express, “There were several times when I was perilously close to crying from the sheer joy of it all.” (Charles went on to become monarch when he acceded to the throne in 2022, ahead of his coronation ceremony the following year.)
Though the pair would ultimately divorce on Aug. 28, 1996, about one year before Diana’s untimely death, their wedding day lives on in history.
Here’s everything to know about Princess Diana and King Charles’ 1981 wedding.
They received 3,000 gifts from their wedding registry
Credit: Tim Graham Photo Library
Though The New York Times reported that the couple received roughly 3,000 presents between the time of their engagement and their big day, they also had a secret registry, according to Vanity Fair.
Approval was needed by Buckingham Palace to view the list at General Trading Company, which reportedly included everything from wine coolers and bed trays to gardening furniture.
In addition to their chosen items, they were given several high-profile gifts from important wedding guests, like the engraved Steuben glass bowl from the Reagans, the Art Deco clock from Cartier and the diamond-and-sapphire parure of a watch, bracelet, pendant, ring and earrings Diana received from the Crown Prince Fahd of Saudi Arabia.
Diana and Charles had their wedding rehearsal two days before the ceremony
Credit: Tim Graham Photo Library
After an hour-long rehearsal of the nuptials at the wedding venue of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, the couple danced at a gala ball hosted by Queen Elizabeth at Buckingham Palace two nights before their wedding, along with the 1,400 family members and guests in attendance — including Nancy Reagan, according to The New York Times.
A pared-down dinner for 90 followed, after which the group parted ways.
The country’s largest fireworks display in more than two centuries was also held on the eve of the wedding, drawing hundreds of thousands of people to Hyde Park — including Charles, who lit the first bonfire.
Diana did not join in the celebrations, spending the night at Clarence House with her sisters and bridal party in order to get up for her 6:30 a.m. wedding day call.
They married at St. Paul’s Cathedral
Credit: Tim Graham Photo Library
The pair’s venue choice of St. Paul’s Cathedral marked the first royal affair to be held there since 1501.
In addition to its enormous seating — St. Paul’s holds 3,500 wedding guests to Westminster Abbey’s 2,000 — Charles gave some insight into the venue choice while speaking to British television networks.
According to the royal, the cathedral was chosen in part for its “spectacular” acoustics, which he felt would provide guests with a “stirring, dramatic and noisy” sound.
Beyond that, he is said to have reasoned that it had room for an orchestra, a world-famous choir and was “more beautiful” than Westminster Abbey, per the 1998 book The Real Diana by Lady Colin Campbell.
Over 3,000 people attended Diana and Charles’ wedding
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Among the 3,500 who attended the pair’s nuptials were many world leaders, including Reagan, Princess Grace Kelly of Monaco and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, to name a few.
Diana’s wedding dress had a 25-foot train
Credit: Jayne Fincher/Princess Diana Archive
Diana’s gown, which was crafted in the space of three months, was made with ivory silk taffeta that was dyed and woven ivory (instead of pure white) and decorated with ornate, hand-embroidery, with no less than 10,000 micro pearls.
Though its massive 25-foot-long train was undoubtedly its defining feature, it also featured puffy sleeves, a ruffled necklace and a gorgeous lace trim, which came from a bag of scraps that was acquired by designers Elizabeth and David Emanuel at auction.
The scraps turned out to have a royal history, as an expert recognized the antique lace from the bodice of the dress from the reign of Queen Mary — Charles’ great-grandmother.
“It was all about drama and making Diana a fairytale princess,” Elizabeth told British Vogue in September 2020. “The gown was typical of early ‘80s style — overblown, romantic, flouncy — but we had to get it right because we knew it would go down in history.”
Beyond its obvious charms, the dress — Diana’s “something new” — featured several special details that couldn’t be seen by the naked eye, including a blue bow inside the bodice (her “something blue”) and a tiny gold horseshoe that was sewn in for good luck.
“We only told her on the wedding day,” David told Hello! of the charm in November 2020. “She didn’t know about the horseshoe for good luck, [but] she was very touched. She was traditional.”
Elizabeth and David went to great lengths to keep Diana’s dress a secret, deliberately placing bits of unused fabric in the trash for the press to find, according to “Royal Style in the Making” exhibit curator Matthew Storey.
David also confirmed the design for an erroneous sketch of the gown to a Woman’s Wear Daily reporter, who approached him on the morning of the couple’s wedding. “I don’t think they forgave me for one year,” he told E! News of the incident in June 2017.
As for the real sketch, the designer told Hello! magazine, “As soon as [Diana’s mother] Mrs. Shand Kydd saw it and she loved it, we ripped up the design as we didn’t want people to see it.”
With so much interest in the bride’s wedding gown, designers Elizabeth and David prepared a second dress in the event that the original was leaked ahead of schedule.
“At the time we wanted to make absolutely sure that the dress was a surprise,” Elizabeth told PEOPLE in 2011. “Had the secret of the real dress got out it’s possible that Diana would actually have worn this one.”
Diana’s tiara was a family heirloom
Credit: David Levenson/Getty
For her “something borrowed,” Diana had her pick of options, as the Queen offered to lend her the Queen Mary Lover’s Knot tiara.
She ultimately chose her family’s own Spencer tiara, which was worn by her sisters, Lady Sarah and Lady Jane, for their weddings, as well as her former sister-in-law, Victoria Lockwood, who wore it for her nuptials to Diana’s brother, Charles Spencer.
The piece itself also has its roots in history, as it’s comprised of several pieces of jewelry, including end pieces from a bauble of Viscountess Frances Manby. The central part, meanwhile, comes from a wedding present that was given to Diana’s grandma, Lady Cynthia Hamilton, on her wedding day to Albert Spencer.
Unfortunately for Diana, it also caused her a bit of pain. As her brother revealed to Entertainment Tonight in 2010, “I just remember she had a cracking headache too because she wasn’t used to wearing a tiara all morning.”
Charles is the current owner of the tiara and was most recently exhibited by Sotheby’s for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee in 2022, along with roughly 40 other royal and aristocratic tiaras.
Diana had two bouquets
Credit: Terry Fincher/Princess Diana Archive/Getty Images
Like her dress designers, Diana’s florist was prepared in the event of a disaster, making not one, but two bouquets of gardenias, stephanotis, odontoglossum orchid, lily of the valley, Earl Mountbatten roses, freesia, veronica, ivy, myrtle and trasdescantia.
After the Queen lost the flowers during her own wedding, she started the tradition of having two identical bouquets made to prevent a similar mishap.
“We made two bouquets,” head florist David Longman told Express in May 2018. “The first one had to be delivered at 8 o’clock to Buckingham Palace. We had a police escort motorcyclist who took us all through the city to the Palace.”
He continued, “Then we came back, and by that time they had finished the second bouquet and back we went again.”
Diana had five bridesmaids
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The royal couple’s wedding party was made up of two pageboys, Lord Nicholas Windsor and Edward van Cutsem, and five bridesmaids, including Diana’s niece, Lady Sarah Armstrong-Jones (now Chatto), Diana’s favorite former student, Clementine Hambro, Charles’ goddaughter, India Hicks, Catherine Cameron and Sarah-Jane Gaselee.
“Each bridesmaid had been chosen for personal reasons of the bride and groom,” Hicks told Harper’s Bazaar in May 2018.
The bridal attendants dressed in outfits similar to Diana’s, with taffeta satin, lace trim and yellow sashes. Hambro, then 5, and Cameron, 6, were the youngest of the group, and also wore flower crowns to match their bouquets.
At one point, Hambro, the great-granddaughter of Winston Churchill, had a misstep and fell. In 2011, she recalled to Today that Diana asked her if she “bumped her bottom,” to which she replied, “No, I bumped my head.”
Diana and Charles each made mistakes during their vows
Credit: Anwar Hussein/Getty
Diana walked down the aisle on the arm of her father, Earl Edward John Spencer, despite the unsteadiness he faced from a stroke he had suffered three years prior.
During the ceremony, the Princess of Wales broke from tradition when she decided to leave the word “obey” out of her vows to Charles from the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, which dates back to 1662.
“Lady Diana has chosen to follow the new ritual of the Church of England, and she will promise in the ceremony at St. Paul’s Cathedral only to ‘love him, comfort him, honor and keep him, in sickness and in health,’ “ The New York Times reported ahead of the pair’s nuptials.
According to the publication, the decision was one the pair made together after “very serious” discussions with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Robert Runcie.
Despite their careful planning, the royal couple’s vows had some hiccups.
Credit: Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty
Diana accidentally referred to Charles, whose full name is Prince Charles Philip Arthur George, as Prince Philip Charles. Charles, for his part, mistakenly offered Diana “thy goods“ instead of the more traditional “my worldly goods,” the BBC reported at the time.
After exchanging their vows, the duo were taken back to Buckingham Palace by way of a State Landau carriage that dated back to 1902, which was first used by King Edward VIII during his coronation procession through London.
Roughly 600,000 spectators lined the streets of London to catch a glimpse of them as they passed by, per the BBC.
In addition to the verbal flubs Diana and Charles made, the groom forgot to kiss his bride following their vow exchange. To make up for it, they shared a kiss on the balcony of Buckingham Palace.
They had 27 wedding cakes
Credit: David Levenson/Getty
Before the pair jetted off for their honeymoon, they celebrated their monumental moment with a far smaller group of loved ones: Just 120 of the cathedral’s 3,500 guests were invited to the gathering at Buckingham Palace.
There, they were treated to an epic feast that included such lavish dishes as brill in lobster sauce and Suprême de Volaille Princesse de Galles, a play on a chicken breast stuffed with lamb mousse, wrapped in brioche and topped off with Madeira sauce and asparagus tips. It was named for Diana herself, who loved chicken.
The couple had not one, not two, but a whopping 27 wedding cakes for guests to enjoy at their intimate breakfast ceremony, with the main cake measuring a towering five feet high and bearing the coat of arms of both the bride and groom, along with their initials and a sprinkling of roses, lilies of the valley and orchids. All in all, it weighed 200 lbs., according to Eater.
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