Royal weddings have their essence; they are highly publicised and follow years of tradition that define a legacy. Yet, they can be a tricky path to navigate even for the royal members themselves. Thanks to eagle-eyed fans and media scrutiny, even Princess Diana’s late wedding on 29 July 1981 at St Paul’s Cathedral was a big affair. The wedding of Prince Charles and Princess Diana was widely celebrated as a fairytale event, watched by an estimated 750 million people around the globe.
Street parties were held across the UK, and celebrations took place worldwide. Everyone dressed as if there was no tomorrow, except Camilla Parker Bowles. Diana once said she noticed Camilla in the crowd as she walked down the aisle at St. Paul’s Cathedral, describing her look as “Pale grey, veiled pillbox hat.” (She wore a grey-white toned suit with a matching pillbox hat.)
As per the outlet Tyla, in Britain, wearing white to someone else’s wedding was an apparent disrespect to its traditions. Only the bride was meant to wear white, ivory, or cream. According to Zoe Burke, wedding expert and editor at Hitched, “Wearing white or black to a wedding — unless requested can be interpreted as a subtle act of protest. And if the love of your life is marrying someone else, a quiet rebellion might be tempting.”
So was Camilla against the wedding since day one, but no one noticed? Could be. Reportedly, the red flags ( yes, the negative signs that’s what the Gen Z call them nowadays) in the now King Charles were visible right before their wedding.
In her now-famous interviews with Andrew Morton, Princess Diana said that just days before her wedding, she discovered Charles had gifted a bracelet to Camilla, with the initials F and G,” referencing Charles and Camilla’s nicknames for each other: Fred and Gladys.
From the beginning the marriage between C&D was doomed. The cracks and red flags were all there even during their engagement. But convention and society pressure won over both.
After 6 months of Courstship and meeting 13 times only in person, Charles called Diana from the… pic.twitter.com/RRBpiQY6MO
— Canellecitadelle (@Canellelabelle) October 26, 2023
Even though Diana’s conscience wanted to call off the wedding, she was persuaded not to. Sadly, as fate had it in store, what began as true love between the two, followed by a historical wedding, ended tragically with Charles’s public affair with Camilla Parker Bowles, media scrutiny, multiple sad loopholes after the couple’s divorce, and then finally Diana’s death in 1997 in Paris.
Camilla met Diana partly to make sure she wouldn’t get in the way as Camilla intended to continue to meet Charles at friends’ houses.
Charles proposed to Diana and she recalled:
“He said, ‘I love you so much – whatever love means.’”#NotMyQueen #NotMyKing pic.twitter.com/m2QuSy53Fy
— 🍉🍋🍓Murielle 🇫🇷 🇬🇦 💛🖤+💜 (@Mu_Ri_Elle) February 25, 2023
As per Tatler, Diana first met Charles when she was sixteen and he was twenty-nine in 1977 at the Spencer family home. While he smote Diana then, it wasn’t until three years later, after that first encounter, that Charles and Diana met again. In July 1980, they were both invited to a weekend barbecue at a friend’s place in Sussex.
Prince Charles was just out of a breakup and was mourning the death of his great-uncle, Lord Mountbatten. Diana remembered their conversation, turning to those topics, which sparked an emotional connection. “We were talking about Mountbatten and his ex-girlfriend, and I said, ‘You must be so lonely.’ I mentioned how awful it looked to see him walking alone behind the coffin. I told him, ‘You need someone beside you.’
Charles then reportedly leaned towards her and started kissing her. ‘Urgh, this isn’t what people do.’ But from that point, he was following me around all night like a puppy,” she claimed in a tape that was later used for the Channel 4 documentary ‘Diana: In Her Own Words’.
Perhaps the sign that the foundation of Diana and Charles‘ marriage was weak was present right after the beginning of their whirlwind romance that led to a brief courtship. Diana was quite young as well when she met Charles, and maybe she thought love would fix all the issues in their marriage.
Little did she know that she didn’t have to taste the whole sea to know that the water was salty? Queen Camilla was always against the couple; maybe that’s why many fans later noted that Queen Elizabeth II wore white at Charles and Camilla’s 2005 wedding, while Camilla herself wore a pale blue outfit to avoid further controversy.