In the early hours of July 29, 1981, roughly 600,000 people gathered on the streets of London to catch a glimpse of a dashing Prince Charles and his beautiful bride-to-be, Lady Diana Spencer, as they made their way to St. Paul’s Cathedral. Dressed in his Royal Navy commander’s uniform, Charles, then 32, arrived first in a horse-drawn carriage, escorted by the Household Cavalry. Soon after, 20-year-old Diana stepped out of the Glass Coach in a stunning silk taffeta gown — complete with a 25-foot train — to the sound of cheering crowds. It was a fairy tale come to life. “The dress, the setting, it was like something out of a movie,” Charles’ former butler Grant Harrold tells Us.

Inside the hallowed walls of St. Paul’s, 3,500 guests — including Queen Elizabeth II and first lady Nancy Reagan — watched as Charles and Diana exchanged “I dos.” Around the globe, some 750 million people tuned in via television. “Millions got up early or stayed awake late into the night to watch,” says royal historian Marlene Koenig. Now, 45 years later, the pomp and circumstance of the occasion remain unmatched. “Diana was a gorgeous young lady about to become a real-life princess,” says Harrold. “The whole world’s attention was captured. There’s been nothing like it since.”

According to Elizabeth Emanuel, who created Diana’s wedding dress alongside then-husband David, the princess was in high spirits on the morning of her nuptials. “The mood was very good, and everybody was together, and it was marvelous,” says the British designer, noting that despite the hysteria surrounding Diana’s top-secret dress design, she had been a pleasure to work with. “She was always fun to be around.”

Throughout the process — which entailed adding 10,000 mother-of-pearl sequins to the silk taffeta and antique lace gown — Diana was easy to please and easygoing. “She put a lot of trust in us,” Emanuel says. “She was very friendly and very natural, and she had a lot of patience because she had to stand very still for fittings, and she would always chat with all the ladies who were sewing her dress. She was lovely.”

For the something blue, Emanuel added a small blue bow to the back of the skirt, as well as a hidden gold horseshoe for something new. “That was especially created for Diana,” she explains. The dressmaker adds that she had no idea people would still be talking about the design all these years later. “We obviously knew it was going to be very well covered by the media,” she notes, “but the reason it’s still of interest is because Diana wore it, and it’s inextricably linked to her story.”

There were, of course, some nerves. Diana had only met Charles 13 times during their courtship. (Her aristocratic relatives had been close to the royal family for years; Charles briefly dated Diana’s older sister Sarah before he was matched with the shy nursery school assistant.) “She was 20 when they wed, which is incredibly young to be thrown onto the world stage,” says Harrold on behalf of CanadaCasino. “It would’ve been an incredibly intimidating event for her.” Charles was used to the fanfare, but Harrold says the future king was also a bit on edge. “He’s such a perfectionist; he would have wanted it all to go right.”

After the ceremony, Charles and Diana appeared on the balcony at Buckingham Palace, where they shared an impromptu kiss in front of royal watchers. “We hadn’t really seen the royals show public displays of affection like that before,” notes Harrold. “They created an iconic tradition.” (Koenig says Charles got a quick “OK” from his mother before the gesture.)

A wedding breakfast followed inside the palace, where guests were served a first course of brill in lobster sauce and Suprême de Volaille Princesse de Galles — chicken breast stuffed with a fine lamb mousse — as the main course, named in honor of the new Princess of Wales. There were 27 cakes to choose from, including a five-tiered fruitcake. “It was a great occasion and a great day, and everybody was exhausted at the end — their mouths were aching from smiling,” says former palace press secretary Dickie Arbiter.

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Even the queen let her guard down during the celebration. “As Diana and Charles were leaving, all the guests thundered out of the palace, and leading the charge was the queen,” reveals Arbiter. “To actually see the queen running was quite funny.”

For all the magic of their big day, Charles and Diana’s union did not stand the test of time. While some experts believe Diana’s decision to omit the word “obey” from her vows was a sign of trouble to come, Koenig says its inclusion wasn’t necessarily royal tradition. Charles, then considered to be one of the world’s most eligible bachelors, was under pressure to settle down when he chose Diana. “His main duty was to father a male heir and find a suitable bride,” says Andy Webb, author of the 2025 book Dianarama. Diana fit the bill. “She [seemed] ideal,” Webb adds.

Arbiter says he had tea with Charles and Diana three days before their wedding and insists they appeared to be “very much in love.” He tells Us, “They couldn’t keep their hands off each other, and it was ‘Darling this,’ and ‘Darling that.’ Charles in those days was not the most tactile of people, and yet here he was with his hands all over Diana, and quite unashamedly doing it in front of me, which I found surprising.” The journalist adds that the meeting with Charles and Diana wasn’t arranged for him to directly report on, but rather to “just get a feeling” of what the couple were like. He found the experience particularly useful during his commentary on the wedding, noting, “It gave me things to talk about when there were gaps in the proceedings.”

However, it soon became clear that Charles and Diana were ill-matched. “Apart from a few dinners and phone calls, Charles and Diana never truly got to know each other,” says Koenig. “They had nothing in common.” Diana sought the help of astrologer Penny Thornton, who worked with the late royal from 1986 until 1992. “Diana was not experienced in life, and she really adored Charles,” Thornton tells Us. “For her, it was real, whereas for Charles, we all know now he remained in love with Camilla all that time.” (Charles, now 77, married Camilla, 79, in 2005; Diana famously told the BBC that “there were three of us in the marriage” in a 1995 interview.)

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Thornton says Diana told her that Charles had confessed the night before their nuptials that he wasn’t in love with her. “He wanted to come clean and say, ‘Look, I don’t love you, but we’re going to make a very good job of this,’” she says. “It was absolutely a job [for Charles].” Koenig says Diana “had her doubts” about going through with the wedding, but was reminded by her sisters that “her face was on the tea towels, so it was too late to bolt.”

The astrologer tells Us that she and Diana mostly talked about the princess’ future with Charles and her sense of powerlessness within the royal family. “Diana couldn’t approach anyone in the family,” Thornton shares. “She felt very isolated and hopeless.” Thornton says she was struck by Diana’s warmth. “I’d been advised to curtsy and call her ‘Your Royal Highness,’ and she said, ‘Oh, stop that nonsense! Just call me Diana.’ She was an absolute ray of sunshine,” Thornton adds, “and her charisma was very palpable.”

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Charles and Diana — who welcomed sons Prince William in 1982 and Prince Harry in 1984 — split in 1992 and formally divorced in 1996. Diana tragically died at age 36 following a high-speed car crash in Paris on August 31, 1997. “Even though people have now accepted Charles’ [relationship with] Queen Camilla, Charles’ marriage to Diana is one that people still look back on fondly,” says Harrold.

After the wedding, Diana was catapulted to worldwide fame. “She became a global superstar,” says Harrold, noting that the princess forever changed the face of the monarchy. “She put a real focus on her family as well as the crown.” Adds Koenig: “She loved her sons and was determined that their royal lives would be a success, and she wanted to prepare them for their future.”

The storybook nuptials raised the stakes for future royal events. “It was the wedding of the century,” says Harrold, “and it set the standard of the picture-perfect royal wedding. It’s a historic day that people who lived it will never forget.”