Royal Wedding dress code:
Meghan Markle and
Prince Harry will tie the knot tomorrow at St. George’s Chapel, but what will guests be wearing? British fashion critic Colin McDowell explained what royal style we should expect.
The royal wedding dress code is officially “uniforms, morning suit or lounge suit, day dress and hat”, but what exactly will the wedding guests be wearing?
Meghan Markle, 36, and Prince Harry, 33, will tie the knot tomorrow, 19 May, at St. George’s Chapel in the presence of 600 guests.
Colin McDowell, a leading British fashion critic, has suggested what styles their guests will be wearing for the occasion.
He said: "The great thing about a royal wedding, quite apart from the romance of it and the excitement of it, it’s really all about the appearance of it.
"Going back in history, it was only the aristocracy who were invited to these sorts of things and they knew the code, they knew how to behave.”
What will men wear for the royal wedding? “I think it’s always much easier, on these occasions, to be a man. Men’s clothes are, more or less, all the same.
Average man will wear a suit, it’ll be a dark suit. There’s a well-known saying: “A white suit is a mistake a man makes only once in his life.”
I wonder how many people will be wearing trainers?
I think quite a few men will dress just as if they were going to down to the boozer for a drink, you know, to the pub for a drink. This will be perfectly acceptable.”
What will women wear for the royal wedding?“Fashion at the moment is so all over the place, you can wear virtually everything.
"I can guarantee they’ll wear a hat and I can guarantee they’ll wear high heels, but apart from that I’m not sure.”
Will royal wedding guests wear hats?“The rule is quite simple, you must not wear a big hat because people are there to see and be seen.
"There are always some people who don’t think this through, but a big hat is a bad idea.
"So you see women wearing these particularly silly hats now, perched on the side, with all sorts of things going up and all over the place, clutching onto them and trying not to spill their caterer’s champagne…
"I think you can try too hard. Simplicity is the rule.”
Why makes this royal wedding different to other royal weddings?“I’m not really very interested in weddings, and not at all interested in royal weddings, but I really am interested in this one because it’s breaking all the rules. And I’m looking forward to it very much indeed.”
Will Meghan Markle wear white for her wedding? Kate Middleton and the Queen both wore ivory for their big days.
It is likely that Meghan will opt for a shade of white in one sense or another, as it is such a popular wedding colour.
Meghan Markle still has a lot to learn about royal life, former royal butler Grand Harrold told Sky News earlier today.
“There is a lot to learn because it is not just British etiquette but it is also being part of the Royal family, what to do, how to behave, what to do, what not to do when you meet the Queen and other members of the Royal family,” he said.
“So she will very much be learning as she goes along. People have said to me ‘will there be people coming in to train her or to teach her?
“Personally, I think that she will learn from the family because they are masters when it comes to etiquette and how to behave.
“All she will do is watch them and attending many events with them and she will learn the role from doing that.”