When a prince takes a wife no expense is spared. Prince Charles and Diana Spencer were married on July 29, 1981, at St. Paul’s Cathedral, a location selected over the traditional Westminster Abbey to accommodate the whopping 3,500 guests. In true Cinderella style, Lady Di arrived in a glass coach that was nearly too small to accommodate both her and her dress’s 25-ft. train. The guests, who included hundreds of world leaders and most of the European royal families, partied at Buckingham Palace and noshed on 27 wedding cakes that are rumored to have taken 14 weeks to prepare. All told, the affair cost $48 million (about $110 million in today’s dollars). Unfortunately, memories of their over-the-top nuptials, which were watched by an estimated 750 million people, outlasted the union itself, which officially ended in August 1996.
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