Royal wedding: What makes a great one?

Queen Victoria also opted for a shift in style, notes Joanna Marschner, senior curator at Kensington Palace and co-author of Royal Wedding Dresses.

Previous Royal wedding dresses had frequently featured gold and silver cloth. They were not replicable by the general public. Now Victoria was wearing one that was.

“For the first time a member of the Royal Family was wearing a dress that any girl about town might wear,” notes Ms Marschner.

As the Times noted: “Her majesty wore no diamonds on her head, nothing but a simple wreath of orange blossoms.”

The style of dress smacked of a personal choice.

Later Royal dresses also established fashion trends. When the Queen Mother married in 1923, she helped set the trend for a nation.

“The Queen Mother’s dress worn at her wedding was a flapper-style, lace veil pulled right down over her forehead,” says Ms Marschner.

And then the Queen’s wedding in 1947 saw a dress that reflected the times. Despite being designed by the prominent Norman Hartnell, the then Princess Elizabeth had to use ration coupons to obtain the material.

“It became every little girl in the country’s dream… the inspiration for wedding fashions for a decade. These dresses do catch the imagination. They all made their bang in their own particular way.”

Perhaps none since that of Queen Victoria had as great an impact as Princess Diana’s in 1981. The 25-ft long train drew the eye.

“Romantic fashions were a thing of the moment,” notes Ms Marschner. Dresses off the shoulder then became a wedding staple.

What unites all of them is that they reflect there is a wider audience in attendance than just the thousands of invited guests.

“There is a practicality that has to be recognised,” says Ms Marschner. “They are going to be photographed, they are going to have to carry the day in these enormous locations.”