You know you’re a royal if you have a spare wedding dress sitting around at your disposal. When Princess Diana walked down the aisle in 1981, little did the world know that her magnificent dress was one of TWO choices.

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Just in case the chosen dress was revealed before the huge occasion, the designers of the gown created a spare:

“At the time we wanted to make absolutely sure that the dress was a surprise,” said Elizabeth Emmauel of Elizabeth and David Emmanuel designs, who created both gowns. “Had the secret of the real dress got out it’s possible that Diana would actually have worn this one.”

The silk taffeta dress is similar to the dress we saw Diana wear, but doesn’t have the same lace accents and was never actually finished:

“We didn’t try it on Diana. We never even discussed it. We wanted to make sure that we had something there; it was for our own peace of mind, really.”

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Emmauel added that she understands the stress that the designer of Kate Middleton‘s gown is more than likely going through:

“They’re keeping quiet on the designer this time, probably to avoid all the hassle that we had,” she said. “It was really difficult and we didn’t have to contend with cameras in phones etc like you have today. How do you keep something secret like that? I have no idea.”

I can’t wait to see Kate’s gown!

Princess Diana’s Spare Gown Photos

[images: People]