The earliest surviving British royal wedding dress goes on display at Buckingham Palace from Friday, 21 April 2023.

Princess Charlotte of Wales wore the dress when she married Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld (later King Leopold I of Belgium) at 9.00 pm in the Crimson Drawing room at her father George IV’s lavish London residence Carlton House on 2 May 1816.

The bride continued the royal tradition of wearing a silver silk embroidered gown, which cost more than £10,000.

Her mother, Caroline of Brunswick, had worn a silver wedding dress when she married the future George IV in 1795.

The Princess’s wedding dress was white and silver, in the regency empire style, with a high waistline and the sleeves and neckline trimmed with Brussels point lace, with a matching train, measuring two and a half yards (about 2.3 metres).

Both the skirt and the train featured a border of bunches of flowers forming festoons either around the hem or the edges.

Princess Charlotte also wore a wreath of diamond leaves and rosebuds, instead of a veil, a diamond necklace, a gift of large drop earrings from her father and another from her husband, a diamond bracelet.

Less than two years later, Princess Charlotte died in childbirth, aged 21, on 6 November 1817.

The wedding dress is said to be a rare survival from the Georgian era and is now very fragile and this is the first time it has been on display in over a decade.

Style & Society: Dressing the Georgians exhibition is in the Queen’s Gallery at Buckingham Palace from Friday, 21 April, to Sunday, 8 October 2023.