From hubby heartbreak and hair accessory headaches to falls, feuds, and flubs, Princess Diana
described her wedding as "the worst day" of her life — and it’s easy to see why!
A wedding dress might be the most glamorous thing a girl will wear in her lifetime, as
evidenced by countless Pinterest boards full of wedding inspiration.
Princess Diana's dress is no exception.
Well, there might be a few differences.
Lady Di was often followed by paparazzi — even when she'd go to fittings for her wedding
dress.
Dress designers David and Elizabeth Emanuel did their best to keep the dress under wraps,
going so far as to hire security and code-naming Diana as "Deborah" when scheduling her appointments.
Her dress would break records: At 25 feet, its train was the longest ever seen.
This design decision probably came from the fact that the designers had a lot of creative
freedom.
"We wanted her to look like everybody's vision of a fairytale princess."
David told People in an interview:
"We never had any special instructions about how to make the wedding dress.
That added a bit to the fun of it all, made it a bit of an adventure."
"I thought, actually, it was quite important was it's a dress that girls could see themselves
wearing."
Though the designers had a fun time designing Princess Diana's wedding gown, they were constantly
making alterations to the dress.
Elizabeth Emmanuel told People:
"Most brides do lose weight.
So we weren't that worried when she did.
She was looking fantastic.
She ended up with a 23-inch waist from a 26- to 27-inch."
However, the designers didn't know the dark reality behind the drastic weight loss.
Diana struggled with an eating disorder that began the day after she got engaged and would
only worsen as her wedding day approached.
The more weight she lost, the more alterations they made to the dress.
If you've ever dreamed of a princess wedding, then it's possible that a horse-drawn carriage
was involved.
While that's a dream for most, it's customary for the people's princess.
The thing about Princess Di's carriage is that it was mighty small — which caused
a few snags in the dress department.
With a dress that large and a carriage that small, her dress was incredibly wrinkled by
the time she made it to the church.
Even dress designer Elizabeth Emanuel was shocked, saying in an ITV interview:
"We did know it would crease a bit, but when I saw her arrive at St. Paul's and we saw
the creasing, I actually felt faint.
I was horrified, really, because it was quite a lot of creasing.
It was a lot more than we thought."
"Looking back now, she does look particularly fragile within that huge dress."
Designer Chloe Savage, who worked on both Meghan Markle and Kate Middleton's dresses,
told Insider:
"Someone should have warned them that it was going to be stuffed in the carriage!
It looked like it needed to be pressed.
You could have brushed it over before she walked down the aisle.
If all the dress and crown faux pas weren't enough, the ceremony was also riddled with
mishaps.
One of the more memorable was when Diana said Prince Charles' name incorrectly during their
vows.
You heard that right: Diana flubbed the name of her husband-to-be.
The prince's full name is "Charles Philip Arthur George," and even though Charles and
the officiant had pronounced his name correctly moments before, the young princess said:
"Take thee Philip Charles Arthur George."
Luckily, she wasn't alone — Charles would also go on to fumble his vows.
Instead of saying "my worldly goods," he ended up saying "thy goods."
Perhaps this can all be chalked up to wedding jitters, but those are some pretty rough blunders
for any wedding — let alone a royal one that's being broadcasted for the entire world
to see.
You would think fumbled vows would be the worst of it, but Prince Charles also forgot
one of the most crucial parts of the wedding ceremony: kissing his bride.
Prince Charles didn't kiss Diana after they exchanged their vows, which seems like a massive
foreshadowing for their relationship as a whole.
He did try to make up for it by kissing her on the balcony of Buckingham Palace in front
of 600,000 people who had flooded the London streets.
The kiss on the Buckingham Palace balcony would become a royal wedding tradition of
sorts, as Prince Andrew and his bride — Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York — would also kiss
there in 1986.
However, the prince and duchess were actually advised not to perform the iconic kiss, something
the duchess revealed to Oprah Winfrey in the documentary Finding Sarah: From Royalty to
the Real World.
Prince William and Kate Middleton would also share not one, but two kisses on the balcony
after their wedding in 2011.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, however, would opt for a kiss outside of St. George's Chapel.
Many say your wedding day is supposed to be the best day of your life, but it was quite
the contrary for this princess.
In unseen footage from an interview with her close friend Peter Settelen, Diana called
her wedding day, quote, "The worst day of my life."
In 2017, National Geographic would release tapes recorded by author Andrew Morton from
secret interviews he was conducting with Diana for his book Diana: Her True Story.
The documentary, titled Diana: In Her Own Words, would include Diana's thoughts on her
wedding day.
The princess revealed:
"I don't think I was happy.
I never tried to call it off, in the sense of really doing that."
The night before her big day, Diana heard the words that no bride wants to hear: Prince
Charles allegedly told her he didn't love her.
After hearing that news, Diana felt an urge to not go through with the wedding, but she
made no effort to call it off.
Diana's astrologer, Penny Thornton, said in the documentary The Diana Interview: Revenge
of the Princess,
"She didn't want to go through with the wedding at that point — she thought about not attending
the wedding."
At this point, it seems that all of this should have been a massive sign that this union was
not meant to be.
In fact, Prince Charles felt pressured to marry Diana, according to biographer Ingrid
Seward.
Seward told Us Weekly:
"He told some of his friends that he felt pressurized into marrying Diana because Philip
said, 'You've either got to marry her or let her go.
You can't string a ... young girl [along].'"
For most people, the idea of a bridesmaid tripping, falling, and crying during a wedding
would probably seem embarrassing.
But what if we told you that Diana's falling bridesmaid was actually a young child?
Clementine Hambro was only 5 years old when she served as the princess' bridesmaid.
Hambro's the great-granddaughter of Winston Churchill and was one of Lady Diana's kindergarten
students at the time.
Luckily, Clementine didn't fall during the ceremony — it happened when the wedding
party was heading to the infamous balcony.
Being the icon she is, Diana went straight from princess to primary school teacher, asking
Clementine if she'd, quote, "bumped her bum," which would ultimately cheer up the young
bridesmaid.
With 3,500 guests in attendance for Princess Di's wedding, there was bound to be some drama.
In this case, however, the drama didn't involve family and friends, but rather other European
leaders.
Mind you, they were all invited to attend, but some declined — for a mix of petty and
legitimate reasons.
Let's start with the petty, shall we?
The president of Greece, Constantine Karamanlis turned down his invitation because former
King Constantine of Greece, Charles' cousin, was invited under the title of "king."
King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia would also not attend due to the newlyweds boarding the
Royal Yacht Britannia to honeymoon in Gibraltar, which was formerly a British territory and
had been claimed by Spain.
The most legitimate decline was that of the president of the Republic of Ireland, Patrick
Hillery.
In a History article, historian Carolyn Harris noted,
"The president of the Republic of Ireland declined the invitation because of disputes
over the status of Northern Ireland."
Known as The Troubles, Northern Ireland was fighting for its independence, as it was still
under British rule.
This conflict would persist until 1998, so it makes sense that the president of the Republic
of Ireland wouldn't want to attend the 1981 British wedding.
Let's start by saying that, luckily, it didn't rain on Prince Charles and Princess Diana's
wedding day — it was actually a beautiful, sunny day.
But this didn't stop dress designers Elizabeth and David Emanuel from prepping for the worst.
The two went out of their way to make two custom umbrellas.
Naturally, the designers made sure the umbrellas were made of the same fabric as the princess'
wedding dress, and they were trimmed with lace and embroidered with pearls and sequins.
While they sound absolutely stunning, Elizabeth knew the umbrellas would be useless if it
did happen to rain.
Despite the other mishaps that occurred during Princess Diana and Prince Charles' wedding
day, one silver lining was that not a single raindrop fell and the decorative umbrellas
weren't put to the test.