Moments At Royal Weddings That No One Will Forget

Royal weddings are major events. First, there's the routine stress of making sure the ceremony and reception not only accommodate guests, but are memorable for the right reasons. But for royal weddings, there's the diplomatic pressure as well as the pressure that comes with the whole world watching you. Princess Diana and Prince Charles' wedding still holds the Guinness World Record for the most-watched royal wedding in history, totaling in at a whopping 750 million viewers. That's more viewers than the Olympics and the Super Bowl combined.

For Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's wedding, 29 million people tuned in, while Prince William and Kate Middleton's 2011 wedding brought 22.8 million watchers. Obviously, viewership has dwindled since the epoch of Diana and Charles, but not enough to eradicate the importance of these events. Just look at "The Crown": The fictionalized TV show about the British royal family opted out of recreating Charles and Diana's wedding because footage is so ubiquitous online. We're eating it up still, decades later.

The expectations are high for every detail involved in a royal wedding. Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon created disappointment when she walked out in a dress that The Times called "the simplest ever made for a royal wedding." The late Queen Elizabeth II, who died on September 8, 2022, had to use rationing coupons to create her dress because of war-torn Europe, but she still snuck in a little dazzle. We expect big, we expect glamorous, and with all that pressure, there are bound to be some notable moments.

There was major drama for Queen Elizabeth II on November 20, 1947. While prepping for her wedding to Prince Philip, Elizabeth's hairdresser was securing the Russian Fringe tiara loaned to her by her grandmother, Queen Mary when it broke, according to The Telegraph, with only hours to spare before the event. To make matters even more stressful, clips of their wedding were going to be televised that day — a monumental experience for that era — so visual perfection was everything.

Thanks to the fastidious preparation that goes into royal weddings, there was no need for a backup tiara or glue, nor would the ceremony be postponed. The royal jewelers, via police escort, whisked the broken headpiece away and put it back together in the nick of time. In a sort of charming touch, photographs from the day show that there's a slightly uneven gap between the highest point of the tiara and the second point. It just shows that even for royals, accidents happen.

The Garrard jewelry house later exhibited its guest book from 1947, according to Town & Country, showing that on November 11 of that year, Elizabeth's grandmother, mother, and sister, all accompanied the soon-to-be-bride for a special trip. The name of the occasion was "Queen Mary handed to Princess Elizabeth her Wedding Gifts of Jewels," as it was recorded in the book, where her grandmother handed off some of the most priceless jewelry in the world to her regal granddaughter.

Prince Charles hasn't always been the media's darling, certainly not when it comes to any conversation about Princess Diana. But when it came to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's wedding day, Charles was the big hero. Thomas Markle, Meghan's dad, didn't attend the royal wedding because of reports of a heart attack that followed news that he posed for paparazzi for money.

This left Meghan in the lurch when it came to the tradition of being walked down the aisle. So Harry turned to his father for help. "I asked [Charles] to and I think he knew it was coming, and he immediately said 'Yes, of course, I'll do whatever Meghan needs and I'm here to support you,'" Harry told the BBC (via E! News). "For him that's a fantastic opportunity to step up and be that support, and you know he's our father so of course he's going to be there for us."

Author Robert Hardman wrote "Queen of Our Times: The Life of Elizabeth II" how Charles and Meghan came up with a compromise that worked for both of them. When Charles offered to step in for Meghan, she didn't just give a flat yes. "The reply, according to one friend, was not quite what he was expecting: 'Can we meet halfway?'" Hardman wrote (via Newsweek). So everyone got what they wanted. Meghan got to enter her wedding ceremony on her terms while Charles got the chance to step in for his son and daughter-in-law.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's wedding made headlines for the very impassioned sermon delivered by the Most Rev. Michael Bruce Curry. The clergyman hit a historic record as the first American preacher to ever speak at a royal wedding, per "Good Morning America." Curry's sermon was a vibrant meditation on the healing power of love, but his delivery might have been a bit more dynamic than many of the British guests expected. Twitter got all over it, sharing screenshots of Elton John and Zara Tindall appearing to be shocked in their pews. "The Most Reverend Curry doing his damnedest to try and make these Brits feel ANYTHING," someone tweeted during the sermon.

To make matters even more untraditional, Curry delivered his sermon from an iPad, a charming departure from the antiquity of St. George's Chapel. The first Black presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States later told "Good Morning America" how significant Harry and Meghan's wedding was. "Their love was a sign of God's love and what that love can do in our lives," he said. "It brought together our African heritage, our British heritage, our American heritage." He also laughed about the fact that he thought it was a joke when they first asked him. "I didn't believe it because a member of my staff called and said, 'They'd like you to preach at the royal wedding,'" he said. "I said, 'Get out of here; it's April Fools. You've got to be kidding me.'"

Princess Diana and Prince Charles married at St. Paul's Cathedral with Diana sporting a train that was over 25 feet long. Clearly, there was nothing minimal about this big day. That said, they didn't exactly get hitched without a hitch. With millions watching, Diana made a little jumble of her wedding vows to Charles. Robert Runcie, the Archbishop of Canterbury, asked Diana to repeat the following: "I, Diana Frances, take thee Charles Philip Arthur George." However, Diana jumbled up two of the four names. "I, Diana Frances, take thee Philip Charles Arthur George," she said. Given all of the eyes that were on her that day, we've gotta cut the princess some slack for that switcheroo. 

But it wasn't just Diana who mixed up a few key words during the ceremony. The BBC pointed out that Charles also made a fumble. "Wedding day nerves were apparent during the ceremony," the outlet noted. "The groom referred to 'thy goods' rather than 'my worldly goods.'"

That's not even the end of it. As History recapped, the two totally skipped right past the kiss at the end of their ceremony. Charles and Diana eventually exchanged a post-ceremony smooch on the balcony, a move that ended up becoming a new royal wedding tradition. While all of these mishaps sure made for an entertaining event, they seemingly foreshadowed the pair's marital drama.

In one of the more curious traditions at Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles' wedding, the couple publicly renounced their sins. Following the Book of Common Prayer from 1662, according to CNN, the couple said aloud, "We acknowledge and bewail our manifold sins and wickedness, Which we, from time to time, most grievously have committed, by thought, word and deed, Against thy Divine Majesty, Provoking most justly thy wrath and indignation against us."

The very intense public prayers were, at least partially, said because the couple had an extramarital affair while Charles was still married to Princess Diana, a choice that plagued them for years into their relationship, due to the public's allegiance to Diana.

Their wedding, held on April 9, 2005, was unconventional for a number of reasons. They had to push it back by a day because Pope John Paul II had died on April 2 of that year and Charles had to go to the funeral on April 8 as a stand-in for Queen Elizabeth II, according to Express. They also broke with royal tradition by having a civil service first, since both Charles and Camilla had been previously married, and they followed this with a religious service at St George's Chapel. The queen and Prince Philip opted out of the civil ceremony but attended the religious one. The queen also hosted a wedding reception for the couple. The wedding also steered clear of the typical fanfare of a royal wedding and kept to a more subdued theme.

Taking a break for a moment from British royals, let's jump down to Monaco to check out the wedding between Prince Albert, son of Grace Kelly and Prince Rainier, to South African Olympian swimmer, Charlene Wittstock, making her the princess consort of Monaco. The wedding held up to expectations of a lavish, royal gathering. The extravagant extravaganza went on for three days and cost $55 million, according to ABC News, but it wasn't a totally joyous event. 

They married on July 2, 2011, but right before the big day, rumors broke that Albert had sired a child and Charlene was concerned that it had happened during their relationship, according to the Daily Mail. Albert, often called the "Playboy Prince," was already father to two other children, but since they weren't conceived in marriage, they had no legitimate claims to the throne. Charlene reportedly fled to the airport three times in the weeks leading up to her wedding, in an attempt to fly back home to South Africa. The day of the wedding, the bride was caught on camera visibly weeping.

During the ceremony, Charlene was seen wiping away tears, according to The Guardian, expressing emotion that looked closer to grief than joy. To make matters even more uncomfortable, as ABC News noted, Charlene visibly pulled away when Albert leaned in to kiss her, and he eventually had to ask if he could kiss her. Sheesh, sounds like a rough day.