How Princess Diana Was Present at Prince William and Kate Middleton’s Wedding
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Almost 2,000 people attended the wedding of Prince William to Kate Middleton in 2011, but it’s who wasn’t there—the groom’s mother, Princess Diana—that was a bittersweet undercurrent to the celebratory occasion. But despite Diana’s physical absence, Prince William believes she was with him in Westminster Abbey the entire time.
The royal heir says that although she never strays far from his mind—“there’s not many days that go by that I don’t think of her,” he says in Diana, Our Mother: Her Life and Legacy—leading up to his nuptials, her presence was stronger than ever. “I, sort of, beforehand, had a lot of time to think about it . . . when it came to the wedding, I did really feel that she was there.”
And how, exactly, did Diana show herself? It wasn’t any moment in particular, really, but rather a series of them: “There were times where you looked at someone or something for strength, and I very much felt she was there for me,” says William.
Prince William looked at a lot of people that day—Prince Harry, Prince Charles, his close friends in the pews, and of course, his beautiful bride. But he’s perhaps referring to all of them: After all, it was this inner circle who helped him heal after the unspeakable tragedy of his mother’s death.
This candid reveal about his wedding day is just one of many emotional moments in HBO and ITV’s new documentary, which shows that even though Princess Diana is gone, she’s not forgotten—especially by the children she left behind. As Prince William so poignantly says: “They always live with you, you know, people you lose.”
This story originally appeared on Vogue.
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