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Princess Diana: A minute by minute guide to the Royal Wedding - Daily Mail

Princess Diana: A minute by minute guide to the Royal Wedding - Daily Mail

Princess Diana: A minute by minute guide to the Royal Wedding - Daily Mail
Jul 17, 2021 3 mins, 57 secs

In glorious July sunshine, the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer, 40 years ago this month, provided Britain with a rare blast of celebration during a difficult summer.

In the words of one of the bridesmaids, India Hicks, ‘everyone was looking for a fairy tale’.

In the words of one of the bridesmaids, India Hicks, ‘everyone was looking for a fairy tale’.

At Buckingham Palace, the Queen is hosting dinner for 90 international dignitaries.

7.30pm At Clarence House, the Queen Mother and Lady Fermoy, Diana’s grandmother, watch Dad’s Army on TV.

Ten years later, Diana revealed to her biographer Andrew Morton that she ‘had a very bad fit of bulimia,’ adding: ‘I ate everything I could possibly find.’ Charles has sent over ‘a very nice signet ring’ with a note: ‘I’m so proud of you and when you come up I’ll be there at the altar for you tomorrow.

9.25pm Darkness falls and the life-size model of the front of Buckingham Palace as it was in 1749 casts a golden glow over Hyde Park.

India Hicks, Earl Mountbatten’s 13-year-old granddaughter, is brimming with excitement about being a bridesmaid.

In Clarence House, yards from the crowds camping on The Mall, Diana is, she confides, feeling ‘as sick as a parrot.’.

9.55pm Prince Charles lights the fuse to ignite the first bonfire of the hundreds that will be form a chain across Britain.

Lady Pamela Hicks is worrying how she’ll be able to drive home and get her daughter India to bed in good time.

Princess Margaret suggests India can stay with her and her daughter, the chief bridesmaid, Lady Sarah Armstrong-Jones, at Kensington Palace.

Diana, in Clarence House, can’t get to sleep and goes downstairs where Backstairs Billy, aka the Queen Mother’s Steward, William Tallon, offers her a drink.

Midnight In Buckingham Palace, Prince Charles is looking out from a window with the Queen’s Lady-in-Waiting, Lady Susan Hussey.

Now at Kensington Palace, India Hicks has been given a small, chilly bedroom when there is a knock at the door.

A mile away, Diana is in her Clarence House bedroom, finding it hard to sleep with the noise of the singing crowds.

7am Hairdresser Kevin Shanley and make-up artist Barbara Daly arrive at Clarence House.

7.45am The bridesmaids arrive at Clarence House.

India Hicks remembers it as ‘organised mayhem, really wonderful – the hustle and bustle of a bride’.

Princess Diana and Prince Charles appeared on the balcony at Buckingham Palace after the wedding .

9am In Clarence House, the bridesmaids are dressed and join Princess Margaret and the Queen Mother to admire Diana in her wedding dress.

Diana introduces him to the Queen Mother.

10.50am Prince Charles walks up the aisle with his two best men, Princes Andrew and Edward, to the sound of Purcell’s Trumpet Tune.

Diana sets off from Clarence House with her father, Earl Spencer, in a glass carriage.

The Queen and the Queen mother were also standing on the balcony on the happy day.

Bridesmaids Sarah Armstrong-Jones and India Hicks wait at the bottom of the cathedral steps to help manage Diana’s 25ft silk taffeta train, the longest train in wedding history.

12.27pm Charles and Diana emerge from the West Door into the bright sunshine.

The Commanding Officer of the Household Cavalry Regiment, Andrew Parker Bowles, rides beside the carriage on the journey to Buckingham Palace.

The crowds surge down The Mall towards Buckingham Palace.

1.10pm The Royal party waves to the crowds from the Buckingham Palace balcony.

Charles and Diana kiss.

1.30pm Inside the Palace, the youngest bridesmaid, Clemmie Hambro, aged four, trips over and Diana sweeps her up and carries her to the platform for the official photographs.

Charles and Diana sit next to each other but are too ‘shattered’ to speak.

3pm Diana leaves the wedding breakfast and walks upstairs to change into her going-away outfit with her sisters and the two oldest bridesmaids?

India Hicks remembers: ‘It all felt very girly and giggly and wonderful.’ Diana phones the Emanuels to say how much she, and everyone, has loved the dress.

4pm The Queen, Queen Mother and Princess Margaret run across the gravel courtyard to wave goodbye to Charles and Diana.

5pm India Hicks is driven home to Albany, near Piccadilly, to rest – she is excited ahead of that night’s ball at the Palace.

Charles and Diana set off from Waterloo in the Royal Train, heading to the Mountbatten estate of Broadlands, Hampshire, where the Queen and Prince Philip also honeymooned in 1947

Having lain down to rest ‘for a minute’ before the ball, India Hicks wakes up 11 hours later

India Hicks starts to get fan mail, and her mother insists that she writes a thank-you reply to each one

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