The late Queen married Prince Philip in 1947, meaning she had to pay for her wedding dress with wartime ration coupons. This was a very unusual and unexpected way for a royal Princess to pay for her wedding dress.
Queen Elizabeth married her “strength and stay” Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten over 75 years ago, on November 20, 1947, in a service at Westminster Abbey. The famous wedding was recorded by BBC Radio and was broadcast to 200 million people around the world.
As the couple’s wedding took place just two years after the end of World War II, there were still a number of rationing restrictions in place, even for the Royal Family. One of these rules threatened to limit one of the main parts of the celebration as there was tight control on the amount of fabric that was allowed to be used.
Despite the limitations, many women up and down the country showed a huge act of kindness to the Princess – and even committed an illegal act in the process. As the UK was still financially recovering and using a rationing system, there were extensive limits on what was available.
As a result, many ardent royal fans were concerned that the young Princess would be unable to afford the perfect wedding dress. The wartime rationing scheme allocated each type of clothing item a points value depending on the material and labour that went into its creation.
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The scheme meant 11 coupons were needed for a dress, with adults initially being given 66 points to last one year – which shrank to just 24 coupons in 1946. Due to the limit, hundreds of concerned royal fans were worried for the Princess and sent their own assigned coupons to the palace – but they had to be returned.
If the Princess had used them, it would have been illegal. Despite this, the government allowed the Princess the use of 200 extra ration coupons to have her dress made by designer Norman Hartnell.
Zoe Burke, the editor of Hitched previously spoke to Express.co.uk about the late Queen’s wedding dress. She said: “There’s nothing like a royal wedding, and we’ve been truly blessed with some incredible ones in the past 70 years.
“It’s amazing to think that the late Queen paid for her iconic (and now super-costly) wedding dress with her rationing coupons. It was a pretty savvy investment,” the expert noted for a key reason.
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She explained: “Royal wedding spending increased vastly during the late Queen’s reign, as these events have become country-wide celebrations with high expectations. The impact of a royal wedding cannot be underestimated though.
“We’re still seeing echoes of royal brides from days gone by in wedding fashion today. This includes puff sleeves, flounced full skirts, and sumptuous satin fabrics all over the bridal runways this year.
“This proves that those royal dresses truly were a timeless investment.” The newly married couple were given the titles of The Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh, The Earl and Countess of Merioneth and The Baron and Lady Greenwich.
The then 21-year-old Princess’s wedding was seen as a positive after the dark days of World War II. For this reason, many fans flocked to London’s streets to try and catch a glimpse of the newlyweds.
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While their wedding day looked perfect with no visible issues, just hours before the ceremony, then-Princess Elizabeth experienced two problems with what she was going to wear. The Princess had decided to wear Queen Mary’s Russian Fringe tiara for her nuptials.
But as she was dressing at Buckingham Palace, the tiara snapped. The then-court jeweller had to be rushed by a police escort to his workroom and made it back just in time.
The second disaster came when the Princess realised that she had left the pearl earrings that had been gifted to her by her father to wear on the day at St James’s Palace. Her Private Secretary managed to get them to her just in time for her official photographs.
Queen Elizabeth also encountered another issue after the ceremony as she managed to lose her wedding bouquet before the large group photographs were taken. This meant the bride’s hands were noticeably empty.
To resolve the issue, during their honeymoon, the couple put their wedding clothes back on and posed for their individual pictures again. Royal wedding florist David Longman previously shared the anecdotal story.
He said: “If we go back to the Queen’s wedding in 1947, when you look at the state photographs of all the bridesmaids and the royal guests, and there is the Queen without a bouquet. It got lost.
“So in the middle of their honeymoon they had to get dressed up again in their wedding clothes and my father had to provide another bouquet for those photos.” This mishap ended up paving the way for future royal weddings.
David added: “To ensure this mistake never happens again every royal bride now has two bouquets, just in case someone accidentally puts it down and forgets about it.” It is unknown whether Kate Middleton or Meghan Markle followed this rule at their respective weddings.
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