BLIZZARD 40 years since Charles Dianas fairytale wedding
By the time she walked down the aisle, everyone was in love with Diana â€" except the groom
Author of the article:
Christina BlizzardPublishing date:
Jul 24, 2021 • 27 minutes ago • 4 minute read • Join the conversation
Charles, Prince of Wales, kisses his bride, Lady Diana, on the balcony of Buckingham Palace when they appeared before a huge crowd, on July 29, 1981, after their wedding in St Paul's Cathedral. Britain has long entranced the world with its spectacular royal weddings, occasions of glittering pageantry and glamour that feed into a fascination with the British royalty. The July 29, 1981 marriage of the heir to the throne, then 32, to 20-year-old "Lady Di" was a fairytale that captured world attention. Britain's Prince Harry, their son, marries US actress Meghan Markle on May 19, 2018. AFP/Getty Images Article content It was supposed to be the fairytale wedding of the century.
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Article contentForty years ago, July 29, 1981, after years of titillation about on-again-off-again girlfriends, Prince Charles, the most eligible bachelor in the world, finally settled down.
His choice of wife was hailed as a triumph.
The lovely Diana Spencer was the perfect royal bride.
The doe-eyed daughter of an earl, she was raised in the British aristocracy.
She had an engaging way of shyly looking up at the cameras through feathered bangs.
By the time she walked down the aisle, everyone was in love with Diana â€" except the groom.
In a break with tradition, the wedding took place not in Westminster Abbey, but in St. Paul’s Cathedral â€" a larger church farther from Buckingham Palace â€" allowing more people to attend and a longer royal procession through London.
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Article content
Lady Diana, Princess of Wales with Prince Charles of Wales at their wedding at St Paul Cathedral in London in this file photo dated 29 July 1981. AFP/Getty Images In front of heads of state from around the world and the glitterati of showbiz celebrities, the two stumbled through their vows.
Diana’s dress has become an icon of bridal lore.
Designed by David and Elizabeth Emanuel and created with great secrecy, its 25-foot train was the longest any royal bride had worn.
Diana could barely fit it, the voluminous dress and her father into the glass coach that carried them to the church.
Bridesmaids had to hastily unfold the crumpled train in front of millions of television viewers.
Ominously, also present in the church was one Camilla Parker-Bowles â€" an old girlfriend of Charles.
Her great-grandmother was the mistress of King Edward VII. In an act of romantic hesitation that would have consequences befitting a Shakespearean tragedy, at the end of their relationship in 1973, Charles went to sea with the Royal Navy without making a commitment to Camilla.
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Article contentShe wed his friend, Andrew Parker-Bowles.
Charles wed Diana.
And no one lived happily ever after.
Royal biographer Penny Junor is careful about the story described in the Netflix series The Crown, in which on the eve of his marriage to Diana, Charles gives Camilla a bracelet inscribed with the initials G&F â€" supposedly Gladys and Fred, secret nicknames for each other.
Junor said Charles in fact had ordered several such bracelets to give to female friends to thank them for their companionship as he moved off to married life.
And the GF stood for Girl Friday â€" a trusted confidante.
Charles’ private secretary left the package on his desk to go to a meeting. Diana found it and stormed off.
At one point, Diana tearfully told her sisters she had cold feet about the wedding.
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Article content“Too late now,†they told her.
“Your face is on the tea-towels.â€
While The Crown has portrayed Charles as aloof and self-centred, Camilla as spiteful and Diana as blameless, that’s far from the truth.
Those who know them say Camilla is warm and funny, was in a loveless marriage and Diana was emotionally troubled.
She suffered from an eating disorder and could be manipulative. Charles, once mocked as eccentric for his views on organic farming, climate change and tacky architecture, is now acknowledged as being on the cutting edge of those issues.
Charles and Diana were unsuited from the start.
There was a generational gulf. He was 13 years her senior. He loves classical music and opera and is passionate about his gardens and farming.
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Article contentDiana’s musical tastes stretched to listening to new wave band Duran Duran on her Walkman. She was a city lover who enjoyed playing pranks with her girlfriends.
Diana and Sarah Ferguson crashed Prince Andrew’s bachelor party dressed as police officers.
Charles was raised at a time when royals still wed for duty â€" to unite dynasties or seal international treaties.
Then the rules changed.
Suddenly he was expected to marry for love, except no one told him.
Diana was a beautiful romantic, looking for love in all the wrong places.
Tall and elegant, she gave a huge boost to the British fashion industry with her unique style.
At first all seemed well with the marriage. Diana dutifully gave birth to an heir, Prince William, in 1982 and the spare, Prince Harry, in 1984.
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Article contentThen cracks began to show.
Recordings of phone calls between Charles and Camilla were leaked, with him speculating how he’d like to be her tampon. Diana had affairs. Rumours swirled. She gave a tell-all interview with the BBC.
Camilla was fatefully always the love of Charles’ life. Camilla and her first husband divorced in 1995. Charles and Diana separated in 1992 and divorced in 1996.
A year later, Diana, that fragile English rose, died tragically in a car crash in Paris.
It was a heartbreaking end to a life that had seemed so bright and so full of promise as she’d walked down the aisle just a decade and a half earlier.
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THE YEAR THAT WASWhat else happened in 1981? Here’s a blast from the past.
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