You won’t believe how much these royal weddings cost
How Harry and Meghan’s $60-million wedding ranks historically
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s wedding is reportedly costing upwards of $60,000,000. According to the wedding-planning website Bridebook, the couple are likely to spend more than $500,000 feeding their 4,000-plus guests, nearly $200,000 on all those peonies, white roses and other flowers, and $35,000 on their hand-calligraphered invites. Meghan’s clothing expenditure is estimated to go north of the $500,000 mark, but that’s for two dresses so, totally reasonable, no?
So how does that rank among other famous extravaganzas? Find out how much other royal weddings have cost, plus their most outlandish expenses.
Prince William and Kate Middleton As befits a future king and “queen consort,” the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s wedding cost a lot of coin —$43 million, approximately.
The quirkiest expenditure, however, has to go to the bespoke trumpets handmade in Britain by Smith-Watkins that “heralded fanfare” for the couple (it’s that bah-ba-ba-bah thing — you know it when you hear it). The gold-plated instruments start at around $5,000 — and they had several dozen. Special mention to the two cakes that cost nearly $100,000 and that probably nobody ate anyway.
Pippa Middleton and James Matthews While not technically a royal, K-Middy’s sister is definitely blue-blood adjacent — and had the budget to match.
While Pippa’s wedding took place in her parent’s backyard (read: the grounds of their palatial, multi-million-pound country home), whatever $$$ was saved there went straight to the marquee construction, estimated at more than $100,000. Made of glass, it took more than three days to build and included a row of luxe Port-a-Potties.
Prince Pavlos and Marie-Chantal Miller The 1995 Pavlos and MarieChantal (he’s a crown prince of Greece; she’s American) tied the knot in an extravagant ceremony that cost nearly $10 million. The chicest place that money went was on MarieChantal’s custom Valentino Garavani gown, which came in at more than $250,000 and took four months and over four metres of Chantilly lace to make.
Felipe of Spain and Letizia Ortiz Rocasolano When this journalist married Spain’s now king, then crown prince in 2004, more than 25 million Spaniards watched the pair say “I do” on television.
Coincidentally, the wedding cost about that much in USD (around $32 million Canadian). That budget paid for everything from the thousands of flowers that covered the Madrid cathedral they wed in to Letizia’s dress, designed by Spanish couturier Manuel Pertagaz and embellished on the collar, sleeves and hem in real gold.
Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer The OG of royal weddings, the “wedding of the century” actually cost four times that of Will and Kate’s.
Adjusted for inflation, the total bill came in at around $90 million — although in their defence (and Meghan and Harry’s) the vast majority of that went to security and managing the zillion (approx.) people who came out to watch. The rest, we assume, was spent on satin to make Diana’s ginormous puffed sleeves.
Prince Albert and Charlene Wittstock This wedding may be notorious for the fact that South African Charlene almost did a runner the week beforehand, but you may not know that when it did happen, Grace Kelly’s son spent nearly $83 million. Some places that money went? Charlene’s custom Armani gown for the church ceremony and her custom Karl Lagerfeld pantsuit for the civil portion, 110 pounds of strawberries for the cake and a light show/concert by French musician Jean-Michel Jarre.