Here comes the A-list bride.
A star’s wedding dress can launch a designer’s career overnight and earn a permanent place in fashion history.
Soon to join the tradition is Taylor Swift, set to marry Travis Kelce in a gown reportedly inspired by a classic Hollywood icon. As the pop superstar preps for her big day, we’re revisiting the brides who set the bar.
From royals to rock stars, Grace Kelly’s palace lace to Gwen Stefani’s pink-dipped Dior, here are the most enduring celebrity wedding looks of all time.
Princess Diana
The world waited with bated breath to see what 20-year-old Lady Diana would wear to marry Prince Charles in 1981. It’s one of the most influential — and over-the-top — designs in history, boasting a 25-foot train, extravagant puffed sleeves and ruffles, 10,000 seed pearls. It sparked many an ’80s trend and is perhaps the most famous wedding gown of all time.
Elizabeth Taylor
Elizabeth Taylor walked down the aisle eight times, but her first gown remains a reference point more than 75 years later. At 18, she married hotel heir Conrad “Nicky” Hilton in a satin gown by MGM costume designer Helen Rose — a studio gift with a high illusion neckline and a nipped basque waist.
Kate Middleton
The identity of Kate Middleton’s designer was one of Britain’s best-kept secrets until the now-princess stepped out of the car in 2011. Sarah Burton, under Alexander McQueen, crafted the satin gazar gown, its bodice hand-appliquéd with lace roses, thistles and shamrocks by a Royal School of Needlework team that washed their hands every 30 minutes to keep it spotless.
Meghan Markle
Seven years later, another Windsor bride walked down the aisle in a gown that was the picture of restraint. Clare Waight Keller, the first female artistic director of Givenchy, designed Meghan Markle a pure-white silk gown with a bateau neckline and no ornamentation for her 2018 wedding to Prince Harry. The drama lived in the veil, embroidered with a flower for each of the 53 Commonwealth nations, plus a California poppy for her home state.
Kim Kardashian
Before the split, there was the spectacle. Kardashian married Kanye West at Florence’s 16th-century Forte di Belvedere in 2014 in a long-sleeved Givenchy Haute Couture lace gown by Riccardo Tisci, complete with a dramatic cutout back and an airy silk veil. Toddler-aged North West wore a matching mini version.
Hailey Bieber
For her 2019 South Carolina ceremony with Justin Bieber, Hailey wore an off-the-shoulder Off-White gown by the late Virgil Abloh. In true hypebeast fashion, the veil was screen-printed at the hem with “TILL DEATH DO US PART.”
Priyanka Chopra
Chopra’s four-day 2018 wedding to Nick Jonas at Jodhpur’s Umaid Bhawan Palace called for an epic wardrobe to match. For the Christian ceremony, Chopra wore a Ralph Lauren gown covered in more than 2 million sequins under a hand-embroidered lace coat and 75-foot veil. The following day, she switched into a deep-red Sabyasachi lehenga stitched by 110 artisans over more than 3,700 hours. A series of opulent reception looks provided even more drama.
Grace Kelly
When Kelly traded Hollywood for Monaco in 1956, she did it in a gown fit for the palace she was marrying into. MGM’s Rose designed the ivory showpiece, which featured a high-necked bodice of rose-point lace, a bell-shaped peau de soie skirt and roughly 125 yards of silk, tulle and antique lace.
Kate Middleton’s long lace sleeves would pay homage to the look 55 years later.
Victoria Beckham
Posh went all out for her 1999 wedding to David Beckham at Ireland’s Luttrellstown Castle. Her strapless champagne Vera Wang ballgown came with a 20-foot train and a corset by the famed Mr. Pearl, which crossed the Atlantic four times for fittings. A gold crown — and those unforgettable matching purple reception looks — sealed the deal.
Angelia Jolie
For the actress’ 2014 wedding to Brad Pitt at France’s Château Miraval, Atelier Versace master tailor Luigi Massi hand-embroidered her ivory silk gown and veil with dozens of drawings by the couple’s six children. “Luigi is like family to me and I couldn’t imagine anyone else making this dress,” Jolie told People at the tine. “He knows and cares for the children and it was great fun putting it together.”
Gwen Stefani
No white-on-white for the No Doubt frontwoman. To wed Gavin Rossdale in London in 2002, Stefani chose a John Galliano for Christian Dior gown with a skirt and veil spray-painted in a punky pink ombré dip.
Dua Lipa
The “Houdini” singer wed actor Callum Turner at a London registry office in a custom white Schiaparelli couture skirt suit by Daniel Roseberry, then celebrated in Sicily in the first-ever Chanel Haute Couture wedding gown by Matthieu Blazy, resplendent with feathers and 480,000 hand-embroidered beads.
Jacqueline Kennedy
Jackie’s 1953 wedding to then-Senator John F. Kennedy in Newport, RI, produced one of the century’s most photographed gowns. Ann Lowe, a celebrated African American fashion designer for high society during a time of segregation, used 50 yards of fabric to create the ivory silk taffeta dress with a portrait neckline and a full bouffant skirt.
Amal Clooney
The human-rights lawyer married George Clooney in Venice in 2014 in one of Oscar de la Renta’s final designs. The off-the-shoulder gown layered ivory tulle and 14 yards of Chantilly lace, hand-beaded with pearls and crystals and trailed by a cathedral-length veil.
Kate Moss
Moss brought Jazz Age glamour to the English countryside. The supermodel married the Kills’ Jamie Hince in the Cotswolds in 2011 in a bias-cut, 1920s-inspired slip by her close friend John Galliano, its sheer overlay scattered with gold-sequin leaves.
She finished the vintage look with a cap veil and Manolos hiding a blue-tinted insole — her “something blue.”
Sofia Richie
Richie’s 2023 wedding to music exec Elliot Grainge at the Hôtel du Cap-Eden-Roc launched a thousand “quiet luxury” moodboards. The bride, 24, cycled through several custom Chanel looks, saying “I do” in a sleeveless sequin-and-lace halter gown with two hearts and her initials tucked into the lining.
Solange Knowles
The younger Knowles rode up to her 2014 New Orleans wedding on a white bicycle, wearing a caped Stéphane Rolland jumpsuit. She then changed into a floor-length ivory gown — complete with cape and train — by Humberto Leon for Kenzo.
Yoko Ono
To marry John Lennon in Gibraltar in 1969, the artist wore a white tiered minidress with knee-high socks, sneakers, oversized shades and a floppy sun hat — a look as laid-back as their seven-day Amsterdam “bed-in” honeymoon.
Bianca Jagger
When Bianca married Mick Jagger in Saint-Tropez in 1971, she skipped the gown in favor of an ivory Yves Saint Laurent Le Smoking jacket, a bias-cut silk skirt and a veiled wide-brim hat — a rock n’ roll power suit for the ages.
