You sure can’t say Meghan Markle isn’t thoughtful and romantic, and that was never more on display than in how she chose to carry out the “something blue” tradition on her wedding day. (You know the one—“something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue.”) Meghan apparently wore a blue dress on her first date with Prince Harry, and her gown’s designer, Clare Waight Keller of Givenchy, stitched that blue fabric into her wedding gown, which she wore to marry the prince in May 2018.
Waight Keller was the first female artistic director of the iconic fashion house and told Vanity Fair “We basically sewed it into the hem of the wedding dress, so she was the only one that knew that it was there,” she said. “It was a little blue gingham check. It was the perfect personal memento that was secretly hidden inside the dress.”
Meghan herself alluded to this in HBO’s 2018 documentary Queen of the World, where she said “Somewhere in here there’s a piece of blue fabric that’s stitched inside—it was my something blue,” she said as she inspected the dress for the first time since her wedding day. “It’s fabric from the dress that I wore on our first date.”
Another sentimental touch Meghan added to her look was to have hand-embroidered flower trim representing each of the 53 countries of the Commonwealth on her cathedral-length veil. “[Meghan] felt like she was bringing an element of each of those countries down the aisle with her,” Waight Keller said. “So that her new role—and that bridge to the new role—was captured in what she was wearing. 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.”
Harry’s father King Charles (then Prince Charles) was also touched by the thoughtful detail: “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,” Waight Keller said. “He was really very interested, actually, in all the different motifs and the floral representations.” Charles, if you’ll remember, walked Meghan partway down the aisle after Meghan’s father, Thomas Markle, was unable to attend.
Waight Keller—who left Givenchy in 2020, two years after Harry and Meghan’s big day—said Meghan “always loved” Audrey Hepburn, who was an original muse of Hubert de Givenchy, as well as the effortlessness of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy’s wedding dress.
Just a few months after the royal wedding, Meghan surprised Waight Keller at the British Fashion Awards in London to present her with the British Womenswear Designer of the Year Award. While accepting the honor, Waight Keller thanked Meghan for trusting her with her gown for such an important occasion: “I got to know Meghan on such a personal level,” she said at the time. “To have someone like that trust you in an incredible moment in their life is something that is just the most unbelievable honor. I can’t thank you enough, because it was the most beautiful moment.”
