Monday, May 19th is the seventh wedding anniversary of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. Seven years ago, everything worked out beautifully on Meghan and Harry’s wedding day. The Thomas Markle melodrama was put aside, Harry was brimming with pride at his bride, Doria Ragland was regal and emotional as she watched her baby marry a prince, and the two wicked witches of Windsor (Camilla and Kate) were left reeling by how Meghan pulled it off despite their behind-the-scenes efforts to derail the wedding.
Obviously, people still like to talk about Meghan’s wedding gown. Her Givenchy gown has grown on me over the years – back in 2018, I thought it was pretty, but I wasn’t in love with the boatneck or the fit. I didn’t complain about the color of the gown though – Meghan wore white for her second wedding, and apparently, Queen Elizabeth took issue with that. We heard that back in 2022, in Katie Nicholl’s book too – Nicholl reported (straight from Angela Kelly, I’m sure) that “The Queen was surprised that Meghan wore pure white on her wedding day. Perhaps it’s a generational thing, but she believes if you’ve been married before, you wear off-white on your wedding day, which is what the Duchess of Cornwall did.” Well, it looks like Ol’ Angela is still telling people that QEII hated Meghan’s gown:
In the classic fairytale the beautiful princess marries her prince and the two ride off in a carriage to live ‘happily ever after’. For American girl Meghan Markle, her life changed overnight when she married the British Prince Harry and in her wedding speech she described it as a ‘modern fairytale’. But unlike Snow White and Sleeping Beauty, who were fresh-faced teenagers when they met their Prince Charming, Meghan had been married before. And unlike the fairytales which end at ‘happily ever after’, the Sussexes’ love story took a sharp turn after their wedding day when the duchess realised the cheering crowds and beautiful palace weren’t all they were made out to be in the books.
The city-girl-turned-duchess wore a Audrey Hepburn-inspired floor-length gown crafted by French fashion house Givenchy and Clare Waight Keller, their first female artistic director. The gown featured long sleeves and a bateau neckline, which was a nod to the iconic Givenchy dress in the 1957 movie Funny Face, and cost £100,000. The gown referenced the codes of the iconic House of Givenchy, showcasing the expert craftsmanship of its world-renowned Parisian couture atelier which was founded in 1952.
True to the heritage of the house, the pure lines of the dress were achieved using six meticulously placed seams, focusing on the graphic open bateau neckline that gracefully framed her shoulders and emphasised her slender sculpted waist. Meghan added a personal touch, stitching a piece of blue gingham fabric from the dress she wore on their first date in the hem. But instead of singing mice and birds, the duchess’s dress involved the work of 50 people and took 3,900 hours – including eight dress fittings over the course of four months.
Ingrid Seward, one of the most prominent and respected writers on the British Royal Family, discussed the nuptials in her book, My Mother and I. The royal biographer wrote: ‘The Queen never voiced her true opinions except to her close confidants, such as Lady Elizabeth Anson, or Liza as she was known to her friends. She told me that the Queen had made only one remark about Meghan and Harry’s wedding and that was that Meghan’s Givenchy wedding gown was “too white”.’
‘Those two words embraced everything she felt about the dramas in the run-up to the marriage and the Disneyesque spectacle of the day itself’, according to the royal expert. ‘In the monarch’s view, it was not appropriate for a divorcee getting remarried in church to look quite so flamboyantly virginal.’
For what it’s worth, Camilla DID wear white to her second wedding, the civil service which was done locally in Windsor. Camilla wore a creamy white suit/coatdress to that civil wedding. Then she changed into a pale blue dress for the “blessing” at St. George’s Chapel in Windsor. You know who else wore white for her second wedding? Princess Anne. Anne had to marry Tim in Scotland, but she wore a white suit as well.
As for Meghan’s white gown… the problem all of these people had with Meghan then AND now is that she pulled it off, despite all of their attempts to derail her and destroy her. They were trying to chase her off before the wedding, they were trying to make her miserable before and during the wedding, and they’re astounded that they failed so spectacularly, and that Meghan and Harry’s wedding was so iconic. Anyway, I wouldn’t be surprised if QEII – or anyone from that generation – had thoughts about Meghan wearing white. What no one mentions is that QEII seemed to have a lot of affection for Meghan and she genuinely thought Meghan would be good for the Firm.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.
