It has nearly been five years since Prince Harry married Meghan Markle in May 2018, and we are still talking about the drama between Meghan and her sister-in-law, the Princess of Wales (then the Duchess of Cambridge) over Princess Charlotte’s bridesmaid’s dress in the leadup to the royal wedding.
Now, though, we have a new voice added into the mix: Luxury tailor Ajay Mirpui has spoken out to The Daily Mail about the succession of events (per People) and is shedding some light on what happened. The events were pertinent enough to garner a mention in Spare, Harry’s tell-all released this week.
Here’s what happened, from Harry’s side: Harry writes that Kate texted Meghan four days before the wedding, saying “Charlotte’s dress is too big, too long, too baggy. She cried when she tried it on at home.” Meghan, according to the book, then directed her to see the tailor “standing by” at Kensington Palace since 8 a.m., but Kate insisted “all the dresses need to be remade.” Meghan told Kate that she was under stress because of the wedding and the additional drama surrounding her father, Thomas Markle. Kate said she understood, but the conversation went “back and forth.”
“I’m not sure what else to say,” Meghan finally said, per Spare. “If the dress doesn’t fit, then please take Charlotte to see Ajay. He’s been waiting all day.” Kate’s response? “Fine.”
“A short time later, I arrived home and found Meg on the floor. Sobbing,” Harry writes. “I was horrified to see her so upset but didn’t think it was a catastrophe.” Harry then writes that Kate came by the next day with flowers and a card to apologize.
But now we’re hearing from the aforementioned “Ajay,” who says his team worked quickly to alter the six bridesmaids’ dresses before the wedding on May 19, including Charlotte.
“If anything happened in the background, it didn’t happen in front of me,” Mirpui says. “But yes, weddings are stressful at the best of times—and especially one at this high level; you’ve got to respect that. They were faced with a problem like anyone gets at a wedding, with last-minute hitches. I can understand why anybody would be upset if the dresses weren’t fitting—it’s nerve-wracking.”
Of the short-sleeve white dresses with full skirts, “I feel for them all because you wouldn’t want the children to go out on a big stage in an ill-fitting dress—and that’s what they were,” Mirpui says. “All six bridesmaids’ dresses had to be fixed, and we did it.”
Mirpui says that the way the bridesmaids’ dresses were when they arrived weren’t going to fit the young girls, who included Charlotte and also Harry’s goddaughters Florence van Cutsem and Zalie Warren, Meghan’s goddaughters Rylan and Remi Lit, and Ivy Mulroney, the daughter of Meghan’s friend Jessica Mulroney.
“We had to work tooth and nail for four days, four of us working until 4 a.m. three nights in a row, to make them fit,” he says. “We left Windsor Castle at 10 p.m. the night before the wedding. Did anyone on the day complain about the bridesmaids’ dresses and how they looked? The answer is no.”
