The world had never seen anything like it. It was the most talked about, filmed and photographed royal wedding in history, with 700 million TV viewers worldwide and a further million people lining the streets of London just for a glimpse of the bride, 20-year-old Lady Diana Spencer, and her Prince Charming, Prince Charles, heir to the British throne.
There was a collective gasp from the crowd as the shy kindergarten assistant stepped out of a glass coach on the arm of her father, Earl Spencer, and began her long walk down the aisle of St Paul’s Cathedral, wearing a fairytale cream confection of silk and lace with a 7.5m train.
At the altar stood Charles, 33, resplendent in full naval uniform, complete with sword.
Kings and queens, princes and potentates from around the world witnessed the ceremony, which was notable for Diana fluffing her vows by mixing up the order of Charles’s many names. It was a stumble that endeared her to all – as did the kiss on the balcony of Buckingham Palace, when the couple joined the Queen and the royal family to wave at the crowds.
“I just absolutely thought I was the luckiest girl in the world,” Diana later declared of the extraordinary day. Sadly, the marriage collapsed in 1992, not long after Andrew Morton’s explosive book, Diana: Her True Story, hit the streets. In it, she gave a different view of her wedding. “I felt like a lamb to the slaughter … that was the worst day of my life.”
The couple divorced in 1996.
A year later, on August 31, 1997, Diana, Princess of Wales, died in a car crash in Paris.
