A complete history of the most memorable royal wedding disasters

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For the hopeless romantics out there, royal weddings are magical occasions, filled with sweet, tender moments reaffirming that yes, love is real. It’s impossible not to sigh wistfully at the thought of princes and princesses exchanging heartfelt vows and promising to love one another for the rest of their natural lives.

Yes, there’s nothing more romantic than when a fairytale comes to life in the form of a royal wedding. Royal weddings, in all their pomp and ceremony, are the standard by which the romantic at heart set their dream nuptials.

For royals, nothing is off the wedding table, from custom wedding gowns to jewelled tiaras. Case in point: at Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s 2018 wedding, the bride wore a custom Clare Waight Keller for Givenchy wedding gown, borrowed Queen Mary’s diamond bandeau tiara from The Queen, and had Grammy Award-winning singer, Elton John, perform at the reception. Talk about a fairytale wedding!

These kind of events don’t just happen overnight, though, months of planning go into royal weddings to make them into momentous history-making events. However, at the end of the day, royals and their wedding planners are only human, and despite the best-laid plans, things can and do go wrong, even to royals.

From a broken tiara to a bottle of perfume spilled all over the bride-to-be’s wedding gown, we chart the most memorable royal wedding day mishaps in history.

In 1947, the then Princess Elizabeth (see above) experienced a bridal nightmare when her diamond tiara snapped into two pieces as her hairdresser was securing it to her veil. The tiara, known as the Fringe Tiara, was loaned to Elizabeth by her mother, The Queen Mother, as her “something borrowed”. It had been commissioned in 1919, for Elizabeth’s grandmother, Queen Mary. The royals were prepared for something like this, though. A court jeweller was on standby and took the tiara via police escort to the royal jewellery house, Garrard to salvage the damage. The tiara was welded back together in time for the then Princess Elizabeth’s wedding. The only evidence of the mishap was the slight gap between the central diamond spike and the one on the right.

Lady Gabriella Windsor married financier Thomas Kingston in a gorgeous ceremony at St George’s Chapel in May of 2019. Her dress was designed by Italian fashion designer Luisa Beccaria, whom Gabriella is a huge fan of. According to , Gabriella broke tradition by working on the dress without her mother overseeing anything. Despite all her planning, there was a small hitch during her procession up the aisle. In her interview with , she recalled how her little bridesmaids kept wandering over her sheer tulle 20 foot veil, unaware it was actually causing her tiara to pull back. “I slowed down until they’d stepped off it, but then it happened again. Fortunately my hairdresser had pinned the tiara in place and it stood firm.”

On her wedding day, Princess Diana decided to wear her favourite scent down the aisle of St Paul’s Cathedral: Quelques Fleurs. Or rather, the perfume wore her. Barbara Daly, Diana’s wedding day make-up artist, revealed that the scent – which is the first ever true multi-floral blend, according to Houbigant Paris – spilled over the front of her gown as she was dabbing it on her wrists. According to , Daly advised Diana to hold her dress up as though she was avoiding to step on it to cover the stain. Luckily, her mishap was unnoticed by millions and to this day, only her stunning beauty is remembered.

There was a lot of secrecy surrounding Princess Diana’s wedding dress. Per , the now iconic wedding dress was actually kept in a safe overnight and was taken through a window on the morning of the wedding so the crowd gathered on the street wouldn’t catch a glimpse of it. However, despite all of this, onlookers gaped at the 25 foot train as much as the wrinkles on the gown as Diana stepped out of her carriage. reports that Elizabeth and David Emanuel, the designers of the gown, were “horrified” by the creasing on the dress. “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 said.

Back in 2011, Kate Middleton’s wedding ring was a little too small. During the ceremony, as Prince William tried to slip the ring on his bride’s finger, it took some time as the ring was not moving past her knuckle. Kate had the wedding ring made a size smaller so the ring wouldn’t slip off as she had the same issue with the engagement ring.

Lady Charlotte Wellesley married Alejandro Santo Domingo in a ceremony in Spain in 2016, wearing a long-sleeve, off-the-shoulder ball gown designed by Emilia Wickstead. The cathedral veil she wore over her head, adorned in a Swiss dot pattern, flew up as the wind blew, but Charlotte just laughed it off. The wind, apparently, does not seem to care whether you’re a royal or not.

Princess Diana’s incredibly extravagant wedding dress almost didn’t fit in the glass carriage she had to travel in. The legend states her gown was so voluminous she only just fit inside the ceremonial coach, a necessity the designers had forgotten to account for.

Due to controversy surrounding Princess Beatrix marrying Claus von Amsberg back in 1966 (due to his German nationality), a large amount of protests took place nearby the ceremony. As the pair said their vows together in Amsterdam, security had to navigate smoke bombs outside.

During the four-hour wedding service of King Baudouin and Queen Fabiola which took place at the Royal Palace in Brussels in 1960, the bride was fasting for the Eucharist prior to the nuptial. This caused the bride to almost faint during the ceremony.

Guest stood in the sunshine in 1978, to wait for the beautiful bride Princess Caroline, the princess of Monaco, to arrive in the arm of father. Wearing a Marc Bohan for Christian Dior gown with a floral headpiece and veil, the bride looked the perfect picture of a relaxed royal bride. Unfortunately, prior to her wedding day, her dress design was leaked. The house of Dior couldn’t have the princess walk out in a gown that had already been seen, so days before the maison hastily made changes to the gown.

There was quite a commotion when the then Princess Elizabeth realised her pearls were not with her moments before the wedding, instead, they were around the corner at St James’s Palace. A courtier was displaced on foot to get them. As well, the bridal bouquet could not be located, eventually it was found in a cupboard!

The tiara Princess Diana wore on her head on her wedding day caused her some grief. The tiara, known as the Spencer tiara, was a Spencer family piece that was elaborately styled with flowers and diamonds in silver settings. Despite its beauty, Diana’s brother, Earl Charles Spencer, recalls the weight of the tiara gave Princess Diana a “cracking headache.”

The beautiful Queen of Spain, Sofía, accidentally tripped over on her wedding day in 1962. As the bride was so excited to tie the knot, she tripped over her Jean Desses gown. The gown, designed by the Parisian designer with silver and white lamé and covered in a tulle and antique lace, had a five-metre train, so there was no surprise that the bride took a small stumble.

All wedding days come with nerves, but for this royal bride, the nerves really got the best of her. During the civil ceremony which was held at the Empire Salon of the Palace in 1959, the bride burst into tears due to her heightened emotions. In the middle of the ceremony the groom’s grandmother, the Dowager Queen Elizabeth, had to step forward and comfort the bride to calm her down and make her feel at ease, right in the middle of the nuptials.

During the couple’s vows, Princess Diana said the wrong name! Instead of saying ‘Charles Philip’, she got the order wrong and instead said “Philip Charles.’

Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, (and not pictured above) experienced one of the most horrifying scenarios on the morning of her wedding. Her wedding dress was a magnificent white and silver dress with white diamonds. It also didn’t fit. Her dress was apparently made before her arrival in France and her dressmakers had to estimate her measurements. Legend has it that her bodice was too tight and could not be properly cinched. So, it was left open with a gap, revealing the lace she had on underneath.Click Here: watford fc shirt