Who designed Princess Diana's wedding dress for her 1981 marriage to Charles?

David and Elizabeth Emanuel designed Princess Diana’s wedding dress for her 1981 marriage to Charles, Prince of Wales.

The Emanuels were a married British design partnership who established their own fashion house in 1977. Diana selected them after becoming fond of a chiffon blouse they had made for a formal portrait session. Their gown was deliberately dramatic, combining ivory silk taffeta, antique lace, a full skirt, and voluminous sleeves.

The dress was worn at St Paul’s Cathedral on 29 July 1981. Its most famous measurement was the 25-foot train, accompanied by a 153-yard tulle veil. The gown also featured about 10,000 pearls and sequins, with a heart motif among its decorations. Its long train proved difficult to fit inside the glass coach and arrived visibly wrinkled.

Sarah Burton is sometimes confused with Diana’s original designers because Burton designed Catherine, Princess of Wales’s 2011 wedding dress. Bruce Oldfield later designed clothes for Diana, but not the 1981 bridal gown. The Emanuels also prepared a spare dress in case the main design leaked before the wedding, illustrating how closely guarded the royal ensemble was.