Princess Diana’s Other Wedding Dress

In the commotion leading up to the wedding of Lady Diana Spencer to then Prince of Wales Charles the press was clamoring to get details on her wedding dress. What kind of fabric would it be, what color, how big were the sleeves going to be? The designers David and Elizabeth Emanuel had been asked by Lady Diana in 1981 to design her wedding dress after the future princess had seen one of their Victorian-inspired blouses. The dress became an icon of 1980s fashion, but it has come to light that there was a secret, second wedding dress that few people know about.

The Design Process

Co-designer Elizabeth Emanuel was shocked at being asked, as she supposed that the royal bride would have chosen a more well-known design house to make her wedding dress. At the time the design duo had recently gone to couture from ready-to-wear.

In a 2024 interview Elizabeth said that when Lady Diana would come to the workshop to discuss designs or to be fitted that hundreds of people would be waiting for her when she left. The dressmakers had a ruse going where they would put all kinds of different fabric scraps into the garbage. They figured that reporters and fans would be looking through the trash and they wanted to throw them off the scent of the true fabric of the dress.

In the end the dress Lady Diana wore was made from bone colored silk taffeta embellished with pearls and finished with antique lace once belonging to Queen Mary. The high neckline and puffed sleeves ushered in an era of wedding dress design that’s still influencing bridal gowns all these years later. The 25-foot long train dazzled and the photos of it draped across the steps of St. Paul’s Cathedral stunned audiences worldwide when the ceremony was broadcast on TV.

The Other Dress

For all the details that went into the dress Lady Diana wore there was a second dress that was equally splendid. This other dress was made in bright white silk with many pearls sewn on and tighter sleeves to mimic another dress that the Emanuels had made for Lady Di in shocking pink for the pre-wedding ball. The waist was more defined on this second wedding dress and the overall look was slightly more more modern, with a dash Victorian details thrown in.

This “spare” dress (as Elizabeth called it) also featured scalloped lace inserts along the skirts made from delicate Swiss lace. However, no dramatic train was to be included. The Emanuels feared that if there was a fire or a break-in and the first dress was lost they would be out many days of work and wouldn’t be able to make another in time. But, they also worried that if a crazed fan or paparazzi got in and stole the dress or leaked photos of it that they would have needed that back up dress.

Lady Diana never saw the spare dress, nor did she know it was being made. In fact she never really saw herself in the full train of her original dress either as the studio was too small for them to try it on her and they had to do the final fitting with the train in one of the long halls at Buckingham palace. The lack of train on the spare dress was also due to lack of space in their small design studio.

Sadly the original spare dress was never fully finished in time for the wedding and because of this fact was placed on a sample rack. It was presumably sold during a smaple sale or disposed of, but the fate of this second dress is still unknown to this day. Had the press found the real dress out before the wedding, Elizabeth said Lady Diana might have actually worn the spare. As things happened the original fairy tale dress completed the wedding to a prince in a horse drawn carriage.

A re-creation of the spare dress has now been made for The Princess Diana Museum. Elizabeth used old sketches and photos as well her memory to make a new version of the spare dress. You can see this lovely frock in the video below, as well as hear her tell the story of how the wedding dress frenzy went down.