Even 44 years later, Princess Diana’s fairytale wedding dress is still one of the most talked about gowns in history. The voluminous gown, designed by Elizabeth and David Emanuel, featured a record-breaking 25-foot-long train, a 153-yard veil and plenty of romantic ruffles. But for her July 29, 1981 wedding to Prince Charles, Lady Diana Spencer requested her dress designers include a special good luck charm hidden inside her gown.
Per the Express, the princess had the Emanuels sew an “18-carat Welsh gold horseshoe brooch” into her gown. The good luck charm was hidden in the back of her dress, but sadly, it failed to bring Diana the lucky day (or marriage) that the young bride hoped for ahead of her wedding.
Princess Diana later called her wedding to Prince Charles “the worst day of my life.” In the 2017 documentary Diana: In Her Own Words, the late royal described how she wanted to back out of the marriage but was told by her sisters it was “too late.”
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Princess Diana is seen on her 1981 wedding day.
(Image credit: Getty Images)
Princess Diana is seen walking into Buckingham Palace with Prince Charles on their wedding day.
(Image credit: Getty Images)
The documentary used audio from interviews the princess did with biographer Andrew Morton, and in one tape she said, “I went upstairs, had lunch with my sisters who were there, and I said, ‘I can’t marry him. I can’t do this. This is absolutely unbelievable,'” Diana said in the documentary (via Today).
Although Diana described her sisters as “wonderful,” they told her, “Well, bad luck, Duch. Your face is on the tea towel, so you’re too late to chicken out.'”
Although Princess Diana went through with the wedding, the couple’s relationship was already troubled when they were on their honeymoon. On the trip—during which they sailed aboard the Royal Yacht Britannia and also went to Balmoral—she confronted Charles about a pair of cufflinks he’d received with two C’s.
“So I said, ‘Camilla gave you those, didn’t she?,” Diana said in a recording. “He said, ‘Yes, so what’s wrong? They’re a present from a friend.’ And, boy, did we have a row. Jealousy, total jealousy. And it was such a good idea, the two C’s. But it wasn’t that clever.”
In 2024, Diana’s former butler, Paul Burrell, told Marie Claire that he’d never have given Diana anything with a Chanel logo for that reason due to the brand’s entwined “C” motif, which brought up a negative association for the princess.
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Diana
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