From bridal party troubles to wedding gown mishaps, there’s a safe bet that the day won’t go completely according to plan—and the same goes of the Royals’ highly-televised weddings.
And while they seem unproblematic on-screen, even those picture-perfect royal ceremonies have experienced their fair share of stumbles.
Whether that be the lost bouquet to forgotten vows, it turns out that their big days can turn out exactly like ours.
Below, we’ve rounded up the worst royal wedding blunders of all time.
Princess Diana spilt perfume all over her wedding dress
Just before she was due to walk down the aisle, Princess Diana went to dab her exclusive fragrance—Quelques Fleurs by Houbigant Paris—on her wrists. But according to her makeup artist, she accidentally “tipped the bottle” and spilt it right down the front of her wedding dress. Luckily, she covered the stain with her hands.
And then she got Prince Charles’ name wrong
Possibly flustered after the perfume debacle, Princess Diana got her groom’s name wrong in front of a full Westminster Abbey. She reportedly called him ‘Philip Charles Arthur George’ instead of ‘Charles Philip Arthur George.’
Charles missed a word in his vows
It seems like Diana wasn’t the only one who made a slight misstep in their vows. While reciting his own, Prince Charles accidentally changed a bit of the wording. Instead of offering Diana “my worldly goods,” he said the slightly more eyebrow raising, “thy goods”.
Kate Middleton’s wedding ring didn’t fit
When the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge said their vows, Prince William couldn’t get his bride’s wedding band past her knuckle. The Independent reported that Kate Middleton had requested the ring be resized due to the pre-wedding weight she’d lost, but didn’t double-check the new size before the ceremony.
A startled horse threw its rider in front of Kate and William
As the procession left the church, they were almost interrupted after a horse tripped on the parade route to Buckingham Palace. Dismounting the rider, they attempted to rein in the house and guide it to the side. However, it chose to run down Whitehall until it was eventually stopped by guards and luckily, nobody was hurt.
One of Diana’s bridesmaids tripped over and started crying
Just like Prince William and Kate Middleton’s wedding, Diana and Charles encountered a similar problem with one of their bridesmaids. Clementine Hambro, great-granddaughter of Winston Churchill and one of Diana’s former students, apparently tripped and fell, after which she began to cry.
Lady Diana is said to have bent down and asked her if she had “bumped her bottom”, which reportedly cheered Clementine up.
Queen Elizabeth II’s tiara broke
Just two hours before her wedding, Queen Elizabeth II’s diamond tiara—her ‘something borrowed’—snapped in half. Despite the Queen Mother reassuring her that “we have two hours and there are other tiaras,” according to The Telegraph, the bride-to-be insisted on wearing the one that had broken. Cue the royal jeweller being escorted urgently to the palace with police escort, welding the broken pieces back together. Crisis averted.
There was a mistake in Meghan and Harry’s wedding program
Leading up to the wedding, the world was left questioning whether Meghan’s father, Thomas Markle, would appear at the wedding.
After being caught out staging photos for TMZ, he couldn’t decide whether he wanted to attend his own daughter’s wedding. Eventually, Meghan released a statement via the placement that he would not be attending after all.
“Sadly, my father will not be attending our wedding,” she wrote. “I have always cared for my father and hope he can be given the space he needs to focus on his health. I would like to thank everyone who has offered generous messages of support.”
However, it seems like nobody told the programmer since the official program for the day went out with Thomas Markle still written in.
Princess Margaret and Anthony Armstrong-Jones’ best man was banned
Before Princess Margaret married Anthony Armstrong-Jones, the groom’s best man, Jeremy Fry, was forced to step down from his role. He and his wife, Camilla, were Armstrong-Jones’ closest friends, the Daily Mail reports, but once news got out that he had been arrested in 1952 for a ‘minor homosexual offence’, he was no longer deemed suitable. It was another 15 years before homosexuality was legalised in Great Britain.
William and Kate’s wedding kiss was photobombed by three-year-old bridesmaid
Bishop Michael Curry’s sermon went over time
Florence van Cutsem’s missing bouquet at Meghan and Harry’s wedding
Funnily enough, this one isn’t so much a mistake. The bridesmaid was without a bouquet because it was her job to hold Meghan’s while she was at the aisle.
Diana had a huge headache for her entire wedding day
Diana’s brother, Charles Spencer, revealed in 2010 that Diana apparently had a “cracking headache” for her entire wedding day because she was not used to wearing the heavy tiara. Diana chose to forgo wearing one of Queen Elizabeth’s tiaras and instead went for her family’s heirloom Spencer Tiara.
“In the evening we all went to a sort of semi-private party, and she was there, and she seemed incredibly relaxed and happy and I just remember she had a cracking headache too, because she wasn’t used to wearing a tiara all morning,” he told ET.
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