- Everything about the 1981 wedding of Prince Charles and Princess Diana was elaborate and jaw-dropping, including their wedding cake—a five-foot tall. 225-pound fruitcake.
- Now, forty years later, a slice of Charles and Diana's royal wedding cake is being auctioned off. The slice was a gift form the Queen Mother to Moyra Smith, who was an employee of Clarence House at the time.
- The 28-ounce slice features a royal coat of arms in blue, gold, and red. It's been wrapped in plastic for four decades and is expected to sell for around $700.
Prince Charles and Princess Diana's 1981 wedding is known as the "wedding of the century" and for good reason. The event redefined "lavish affair" and cost a staggering $48 million (which is the equivalent of more than $143 million today, adjusted for inflation).
Charles and Diana's wedding wasn't just a cultural event, it was also the kind of moment that will live on forever in royal history. Royal fans now have a rare chance to personally own a piece of that historic day, because a slice of the couple's wedding cake is going up for auction.
Yes, you read that correctly. A piece of Charles and Diana's actual, 40-year-old wedding cake is still around and will soon be auctioned off to the highest bidder. Who held on to their royal wedding leftovers for four decades, you ask? And, also, you know, how?
Well, the who is Moyra Smith, who worked for the Queen Mother at Clarence House at the time of the royal wedding. According to Dominic Winter, the auction house handling the sale, the Clarence House staff was likely sent one of the 23 royal wedding cakes commissioned for the big day.
"Besides the main official five-tier wedding cake, some 22 other wedding cakes were supplied by various manufacturers and this seems likely to have been one sent to Clarence House for the consumption of the Queen Mother's staff," the slice's description explains. "In view of its size, it is most likely that it was either from the side of a cake, or from the top of a single-tier cake."
As for the "how" question, Smith preserved the cake exactly the same way we all keep leftovers—with cling wrap and aluminum foil, which seem to have done a good job of keeping the cake in tact, if not edible.
"It appears to be in exactly the same good condition as when originally sold, but we advise against eating it," Dominic Winter explains in the description, answering the question everyone is obviously thinking.
The 28-ounce slice, which is 8 inches by 7 inches and features a royal coat of arms in blue, gold, and red, is scheduled to be auctioned off on August 11 and is expected to go for around £500 (almost $700). And, yeah, you can bid online from anywhere in the world.
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