Buckingham Palace Announces the Charles-Diana Engagement
On this day · 24 February 1981
On a February morning in 1981, the Palace confirmed the rumours and turned a 19-year-old kindergarten assistant into the world's most photographed woman.
On 24 February 1981, Buckingham Palace officially announced that Lady Diana Spencer was to marry Charles, The Prince of Wales, ending months of feverish press speculation. The heir to the throne was 32; his bride-to-be was just 19.
The couple’s families had long been acquainted, and Diana had first met Charles at her family home, Althorp, in November 1977. After the announcement, the pair posed for photographers in the Palace grounds, where Diana showed off a now-famous sapphire-and-diamond ring made by the Crown jewellers Garrard.
The engagement instantly made the shy aristocrat a global media sensation, nicknamed “Shy Di.”
The wedding followed on 29 July 1981 at St Paul’s Cathedral, drawing a worldwide television and radio audience estimated at around 750 million people. The fairytale framing made the day one of the most-watched broadcasts in history, cementing the modern royal wedding as a global media spectacle.
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