Being in love with someone else when you exchange vows does not a good marriage make—and, while there were patches of good in the 15-year marriage of Prince Charles and Princess Diana, most of it was rocky, difficult, and, you know, included another person (hello, Camilla Parker Bowles). As Diana said herself, there were three people in her marriage—so it was a bit crowded.
Anyway, before all of that, Lady Diana Spencer was set to marry the Prince of Wales on July 29, 1981 at St. Paul’s Cathedral. It really was the stuff from which fairytales are made, but, according to Edward White’s Dianaworld: An Obsession (which came out April 29), not everyone was excited to see Diana marry into the royal family.
Princess Diana and Prince Charles on their July 29, 1981 wedding day.
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It’s not that they didn’t love her—likely, it’s because they did. In the book (and per Marie Claire), ahead of her nuptials, a feminist magazine called Spare Rib made buttons that read, “Don’t Do It, Di!” The publication, according to White, “expressed itself aghast and deflated by the public enthusiasm for an event that seemed to glorify a Victorian view of gender relations.”
The badges, White wrote, sold “for 20 pence each, and they proved exceptionally popular.” Spare Rib also created tea towels that read, “You start by sinking into his arms and end up with your arms in his sink”—and even mailed one to Charles and Diana as a wedding gift. (In a twist of irony, when Diana wanted to call off the wedding to Charles when she learned he was still in love with Camilla, her sisters told her, “Bad luck, Duch. Your face is on the tea towels, so you’re too late to chicken out now.”)
Lady Diana Spencer on March 9, 1981.
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Diana, White wrote, perhaps “had been listening” to Spare Rib’s advice and took it to heart. After a rollercoaster marriage with high highs (sons Prince William and Prince Harry, for starters) and low lows (a whole lot else), Charles and Diana finally separated in 1992 and finalized their divorce in 1996.
Three months after their divorce was finalized in August of that year, Diana traveled to Sydney, Australia that November. White tells it best: “Fifteen years later, her divorce in the bag, Diana was in the back of a car in Sydney when she spotted a wedding congregation on the steps of a nearby church,” he wrote. “As the car drove past, she wound down her window and shouted at the bride, ‘Don’t do it!’”
A full circle moment if there ever was one.
Princess Diana in Sydney, Australia on November 1, 1996.
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Princess Diana in Sydney, Australia on October 31, 1996.
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Before Diana died just one year after her divorce was finalized, she and Charles mended fences, her friend Simone Simmons said (per The Daily Express). “After the divorce, Charles got a very good friend in Diana, because she understood him,” Simmons said. “Nobody is happy if their other half has affairs, but she loved him with all her heart. If they had left it 10 years and then got married, I believe they would be together today. They would have had their differences, but I think they may have got back together.”
We’ll unfortunately never know, but one thing worth investigating—is that couple from Sydney that got married in 1996 still doing okay? Inquiring minds want to know.