What It Was Like to Help Make Queen Elizabeth's 1947 Wedding Dress

At the royal wedding of Nov. 20, 1947, the first great celebration of the postwar era, Princess Elizabeth and Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten were undoubtedly the stars. Behind the scenes, however, hundreds of people had labored for weeks to ensure the princess would have the wedding of her dreams. Among them were the embroiderers at Norman Hartnell’s Mayfair fashion house.

In 1947, the world had barely begun to recover from the calamitous losses of the most devastating war in human history.