Meghan Markle's Wedding Dress Designer Reveals Where She Hid Her Secret Something Blue

Jul 03, 2023

Clare Waight Keller added a piece of blue fabric from the royal bride’s first date dress, and Meghan was the only one who knew about it.

Five years after Meghan Markle and Prince Harry were married St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle, the royal bride’s wedding dress designer, Clare Waight Keller of Givenchy, is revealing new details behind her iconic ensemble. The Duchess of Sussex walked down the aisle in a timeless long-sleeved gown featuring a bateau neckline, but the getup secretly honored the “something blue” wedding tradition. During an interview with Vanity Fair on August 25, 2023, the designer finally shared where she stitched blue fabric from the dress that Meghan wore on her first date with Prince Harry to the frock. “We basically sewed it into the hem of the wedding dress, so she was the only one that knew that it was there,” Waight Keller explains. “It was a little blue gingham check. It was the perfect personal memento that was secretly hidden inside the dress.”

In the 2018 documentary Queen of the World on HBO, Meghan hinted that her wedding dress included a “something blue,” but she never revealed where it was located. “Somewhere in here, there’s a piece of blue fabric that’s stitched inside—it was my something blue,” Meghan said. “It’s fabric from the dress I wore on our first date.”

Related: This Is the Real Reason Meghan Markle Chose to Wear a Givenchy Wedding Dress

In addition to the “something blue” tradition, Meghan wanted to infuse her wedding dress with “simplicity and just timeless elegance,” according to Waight Keller—who was the first female artistic director of Givenchy when she designed the look. “Not overly feminine, but not really minimal either,” the designer notes. "That effortless American style, where it just feels really fresh and personal, but it's not overwhelming. It's not specific to any particular decade.”

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During her conversation with the outlet, Waight Keller also touched on the bride’s veil, which took 4,000 hours to design, E! News reports. On her wedding day, Meghan wore a silk tulle cathedral-length veil, which was hand-embroidered with flowers to represent each of the 53 countries of the British Commonwealth. According to the designer, both Meghan and Harry were thrilled about the tribute. “[Meghan] felt like she was bringing an element of each of those countries down the aisle with her, so that her new role—and that bridge to the new role—was captured in what she was wearing,” Waight Keller explains. “For both of us, we felt it was a really beautiful signature, and I think even Prince Harry was just thrilled at the idea that we really tried to capture something for everyone in that service.”

Even King Charles III appreciated the touching nod on Meghan’s veil and took an interest in the design, per Waight Keller. “King Charles was just in awe of the dress and the [veil] embroidery, and he asked me about it while we were waiting inside the nave,” she shares. “He was really very interested, actually, in all the different motifs and the floral representations.”

After her 2018 nuptials, Meghan gushed about her collaboration with Waight Keller because the designer listened to the bride’s wishes and turned her vision into a reality. “What was amazing in working with Clare is that sometimes you’ll find designers to push you in a different direction, but she just completely respected what I wanted to see for the day, and she wanted to bring that to life for me,” Meghan said in 2018.

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