Princess Diana’s Wedding Dress Designer Recalls Being “Horrified” Upon Seeing Her Gown for the First Time at St. Paul’s Cathedral

Princess Diana’s wedding dress designers, former husband-and-wife duo Elizabeth and David Emanuel, put a lot of blood, sweat, and tears into designing and creating the bride-to-be’s ensemble for her nuptials to King Charles III on July 29, 1981. After months of hard work, they presented Diana with a taffeta puff sleeve ball gown, embellished with 10,000 pearls and featuring a 25-foot train. Although the getup instantly became one of the most influential wedding dresses (and is still recognized as such), it may come as a surprise that the one who constructed the garment, Elizabeth, wasn’t pleased with the final outcome.

On her wedding day, Diana arrived at her ceremony site, St. Paul’s Cathedral, via a horse-drawn carriage. Once she stepped out of the mode of transportation, Elizabeth said she felt “faint” and was “horrified” at the number of creases that formed on the gown. “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,” Elizabeth admitted on ITV in 2018. “I was horrified, really, because it was quite a lot of creasing. It was a lot more than we thought.” According to the designer, they had done a dress rehearsal before the big day, but they had supposedly used a different material, so less creases accumulated then. 

Elizabeth and David went to great lengths to create the long-awaited getup. The designers worked with six different fabrics, using 75 feet of silk taffeta, 300 feet of tulle crinoline, and 450 feet of netting for the veil, according to Daily Mirror. They also created a 25-foot veil made of hand-embroidered silk. Elizabeth and David likewise covered the gown in intricate elements, including mother-of-pearl sequins and 10,000 pearls. With all of these extravagant details, the dress reportedly cost $115,000 at the time.

Despite all of their efforts, Diana had another wardrobe malfunction before she walked down the aisle: She reportedly stained her dress. In Rosalind Coward’s book, Diana: The Portrait, Princess Di’s makeup artist, Barbara Daly, explained that the bride was trying to spritz Quelques Fleurs perfume on her wrists while getting ready at Clarence House on the morning of her wedding day, but she spilled the fragrance on her outfit. In order to hide the stain, Diana placed her hand over the tainted spot to make it seem like she was holding up her dress while she made her descent down the aisle, Daly noted. Luckily, no one seemed to have noticed the stain.

The couple also went above and beyond to make sure the bride-to-be’s gown was a complete surprise. To keep the design a secret, security guards protected the garment while they worked, and at the end of each day, they locked the frock in a safe, according to New York Post. Elizabeth and David were even offered thousands of dollars to reveal a sneak peak of the ensemble, but to respect Diana’s privacy, they turned down every offer.

In addition to the main getup, Elizabeth and David also created a secret backup dress in case the initial gown was leaked to the public. Based on new photos that the designers shared with Hello! in August 2023, the spare ensemble was made in pale ivory silk taffeta with embroidered scalloped details on the hem and sleeves, plus pearls sewn on the bodice. Although the two dresses both had a V-neck with ruffled trim, three-quarter length sleeves, and a billowing skirt, the garments were two separate outfits. “People always ask you what it was like,” Elizabeth recounted. “It was similar in certain respects, and both had the big skirt, but everything else was different. So, it was really just a backup to the original.” Diana never wore the dress since they managed to conceal the details of the initial design, but Elizabeth admitted that she isn’t sure where the backup piece is stored today. “It just disappeared,” she said.