ROYAL BRIDES 1840-1981: A MAJESTY SPECIAL

 ROYAL BRIDES

1840-1981: A MAJESTY SPECIAL

THE BLURB

There was none.

THE REALITY

I first owned this book as a ten-year-old.  Fascinated by all things royal wedding in 1981 when Lady Diana Spencer married Prince Charles, my mum bought it for me as a present that year.

Featuring beautifully executed and elegant sketches of the wedding dresses of Queen Victoria, Princess Alexandra (later Queen Alexandra), Princess May (later Queen Mary), Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon (Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother), Princess Elizabeth (now Queen Elizabeth) and Lady Diana Spencer (later the Princess of Wales and really, does she even need an introduction?) this is a joy not just for royalists, but also for fashionistas.  I've seen every single one of these dresses in exhibitions at Kensington Palace, and they don't disappoint in the flesh.

This dreamy crinoline really grabbed my attention as a little girl- it's Princess Alexandra, who married in 1863.

She had this dress altered so that she could wear it again, and here's my photo taken in Bath's Fashion Museum, where it was on temporary display in 2019.

As a kid I copied the drawings of all the dresses, starting with Lady Diana.

Here's the real thing, in Kensington Palace's exhibition in 2021.

One thing I will say is that this book- at just 14 pages long- only included the royal brides who went on to become Queen (yes, I know that doesn't apply to Diana) and it would have been nice to see sketches of the dresses of Princess Margaret and Princess Anne; amongst others.

And my favourite royal wedding dress?  It was Fergie's, which post-dated this book as her wedding happened in 1986.  I've blogged about my favourite royal wedding dresses before, and the link is here:-

http://elainerockett.blogspot.com/2021/06/the-best-royal-wedding-dresses-and.html

Editorially, this book is lacking.  I picked up on a typo straight away, a missing word further in and some very bad English.  It also looks like the person offering the descriptions seems to have sight problems.  The Queen Mother's dress did not have long sleeves.  And Princess Diana's dress did not feature a "gently curved neckline-" it was v-shaped.  More care could have been taken over this aspect of the book.  Also, dresses have backs as well as fronts, so that view (even if just a thumbnail sketch) would have been great.

A few years later I mentioned that I hadn't seen my Royal Brides book for a while and my mum kindly informed me she'd given it to a jumble sale some time previously.  I went ballistic!  Yes, by this time I might have been a fourteen-year-old punk, busy designing dresses made of rubber and mesh, but this was MY book and she had no right to do that- as I VERY clearly expressed to her.

So, forty years on, it was a delight to find my cherished book once again!

💗