Exclusive

Diana's wedding dress designer reveals how she fooled the press into thinking it was pink

20 August 2021, 15:41

Princess Diana and her wedding gown designers knew how to mess with the press ahead of her wedding day. Picture: Getty

By Alice Dear

Princess Diana and her wedding dress designers played the ultimate prank on the press ahead of the big day.

Princess Diana made history on the 29th July 1981 when she walked down the aisle at St Paul's Cathedral in a wedding gown designed by David and Elizabeth Emanuel.

Leading up to the big day, there was a lot of anticipation among the press and the public over what the dress would look like – the style, the colour, the shape.

One of the designers, David Emanuel, told us that the press were so eager to find out what the wedding dress would look like that they even started rummaging through their bins.

He explained that while they had to make sure the dress was kept top-secret, himself, his ex-wife Elizabeth and Diana would also have a lot of fun with the press, which led to the ultimate prank.

Diana's wedding gown was designed by David and Elizabeth Emanuel. Picture: Getty

David told us: "We did the final sketch for Diana and her mother, and then we ripped it up. It's hard to believe, but we had press rummaging through our bins looking for scraps of designs and bits of fabric."

He went on to reveal that in order to mess with the papers, they put baby pink material in their bins, which led to a newspaper headline the next day 'revealing' that Diana's gown would be pink.

"We had a sense of humour about it", he said.

David said they would purposely put different colour fabrics in the bin to mess with the press. Picture: Getty

Speaking of working with Diana on the creation of her iconic wedding gown, David said: "She was just exquisite, a lovely, joyful person to work with. Naughty eyes and beautiful skin. She was just the dream client.

"We had so much fun, and Diana was full of fun."

He added that it was simply just the three of them when it came to creating the dress, and that there was "no red tape, no Buckingham Palace interference."

David said that Diana was the 'dream client' when it came to designing her wedding gown. Picture: Getty

The Say Yes To The Dress presenter also shared with us some of his top tips for saving money on your wedding day as new research by Raisin UK shows that the average Brit thinks they must set aside £26,300 for the day.

Another statistic the research found was that 61 per cent of people think it is up to the couple to pay for the big day, and that parents – traditionally the bride's – should not have to cough up the cash.

David said he agrees with this, explaining: "We're living in a different time, a different world, after this pandemic, everything has changed. I think the traditional wedding handbook has been thrown out of the window."

When it comes to saving money, David's top tips included renting a wedding gown instead of purchasing a new one, creating your own flower bouquets and ditching the hen and stag dos.

Obviously, he understands the wedding dress is a big part of any bride's day, revealing that the average wedding dresses he consults with are around £1,000 - £1,500.

However, he added that price only shoots up when the bride then starts looking for 'add-ons' like a veil and shoes.