8 Secrets from Princess Diana and Prince Charles' Royal Wedding (2024)

Diana's dress had to be altered

Designer Elizabeth Emanuel recalled that the young bride-to-be morphed as the weeks elapsed before her wedding to then-Prince Charles, losing a notable amount of the weight she had when she first walked in.

"Most brides do lose weight," Emanuel previously told PEOPLE. "So we weren't that worried when she did. She ended up with a 23-inch waist from a 26- to 27-inch."

Years later, Diana spoke publicly about her struggle with bulimia during the time of her wedding.

"The bulimia started the week after we got engaged (and would take nearly a decade to overcome)," Diana said in Andrew Morton's book,Diana: Her True Story — in Her Own Words.

"My husband [Prince Charles] put his hand on my waistline and said: 'Oh, a bit chubby here, aren't we?' and that triggered off something in me. And the Camilla thing," she said, referencing Charles' relationship withCamilla Parker Bowles.

"I didn't like myself; I was ashamed I couldn't cope with the pressures," Diana continued. "I had bulimia for a number of years, and that's like a secret disease. It's a repetitive pattern which is very destructive. It was my escape mechanism."

Diana spilled perfume on her wedding gown

Diana walked down the aisle of St. Paul's Cathedral wearing one of her favorite scents: Quelques Fleurs. However, according to her makeup artist, it almost wore her.

Barbara Daly famously revealed that the young princess, then 20 years old, accidentallyspilled some perfumeon her dress as she tried to put some on her wrists after getting dressed in theworld-famous bridal gown.

Daly said she told Diana to simply hold that spot on her dress as she was walking to make it seem like she was lifting the front of her dress so she didn't step on it. Diana was even spotted trying to cover the spot where the perfume spilled with her hand as she approached the altar.

Diana told her bridesmaids to "do your best"

Diana knew her dress' 25-foot-long train was difficult to handle and let her young bridesmaids know it. Charles' goddaughter, India Hicks, recounted the details when she and Diana's niece Sarah Armstrong-Jones were in charge of guiding the gown down the aisle.

Hicksrevealed toHarper's Bazaarin 2018 that as Diana entered the cathedral, she told the girls, "Do your best."

Hicks wrote, "We knew what that meant: If we pulled too much, straightening the material, her tiara and veil would slip. But if we didn't pull enough, the effect of the train would be lost."

Diana had two wedding bouquets — because of the Queen

Florist David LongmantoldExpressin 2018 that afterQueen Elizabethlost 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. 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," said Longman about Diana and Charles' wedding. "Then we came back, and by that time, they had finished the second bouquet, and back we went again."

There were some wedding day jitters

Nerves got the best of Diana while she was saying her vows. Sheaccidentally referred to her groomas "Philip Charles" rather than "Charles Philip."

(To be fair, his full name is Prince Charles Philip Arthur George. With so many names to remember, anyone would slip up!)

The dress featured a secret charm

Although it wasn't visible in photographs, there was a hidden good luck charm in Diana's dress: an 18-carat gold horseshoe trinket studded with white diamonds.

"[The dress] was the fulfillment of her princess fantasy," wrote biographer Tina Brown,perVanity Fair."She was insistent in her demand for its puffy sleeves and floating silk, its twenty-five-foot taffeta train, its nipped waist, and its antique lace embroidered with pearls and sequins."

They were (kind of) ready for rain

In case of poor weather, Diana's dress designer made a parasol featuring the same lace as the dress and hand-embroidered pearls and sequins.

However, the skies were clear for the big day.

"It was probably a good thing. It was made of such light material that it certainly wasn't waterproof," Emanueltoldthe Daily Mailin 2017. "It wouldn't have done her much good!"

Camilla was in attendance

Despite Charles and Camilla'sdating history, she still made the royal wedding's guest list — likely due to her husbandAndrew Parker Bowles' role as the Commanding Officer of the Household Cavalry Mounted Regiment.

According to the biographyPrince Charles: The Passions and Paradoxes of an Improbable Life, Charles felt pressured into his marriage to Diana and was still torn about his love for the then-married Camilla — and even cried over it the night before his nuptials.

Charles and Camillainfamously had an affairduring their respective marriages. They went public with their rekindled relationship after Diana's death 1997.

The couple married in April 2005, and Camilla received the title of duch*ess of Cornwall. After Queen Elizabeth died on Sept. 8, 2022, Charles became King Charles andbestowed the title of Queen Consortupon Camilla.