A defining event for all those who watched it, the royal wedding broke records as the media event of all times
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looked magnificent on the 625ft red carpet which stretched from the West Door to the altar, and Diana looked both regal and heartstoppingly lovely. And it was a sight that spoke to the hearts of generations of bridesto-be. With just one tiara’d nod, Diana dismissed the low-key, laidback weddings that had been becoming fashionable during the 1960s and ’70s, and brought the big white wedding spectacularly back into style. Typically though of the new Princess of Wales, even while the spotlight shone on her with all its force, her attentions, at this nervewracking moment in history, were focussed firmly on others. She kept her little bridesmaids reassured and at ease, and she gently supported her fragile father, Earl Spencer, as the pair made their three-and-a-half minute walk down the aisle together, her shimmering gown floating around her. Only when she demurely cast back her cascade of a veil to say her vows, did her own nerves show briefly as she mixed up the Prince’s names – calling him Philip Charles Arthur George, rather than Charles Philip. The forgivable little blunder only served to endear her more to all those watching. Certainly nobody seemed to mind, for at the very instant Diana said her vows, such was the roar from the crowd outside St Paul’s, recalls wedding guest Princess Katarina of Yugoslavia, that “it washed over us like a great wave. It felt as if there were no walls separating us from them.” This democratising and rejuvenating effect on the Windsors was apparent from that day on. Young Diana was immersed in the world of pop culture in a way the tradition-bound royal family had never been. Half a generation younger than Charles, she was lively, impulsive and a lover of pop music. On the ver y morning of her wedding, as she slid into the great cocoon of her dress, surrounded 22