Did Kate Middleton have two decoy wedding dresses?

(Image credit: Getty Images)

When Kate Middleton wed Prince William back in 2011, it was the fairytale royal wedding everyone had been dreaming of. But while everything was perfect on the big day, it seems like there might have been a few issues behind the scenes in the run-up to it, involved Kate Middleton's wedding dress.

Despited her best efforts to keep it a secret, a couple of months before she walked down the aisle, the story broke that she had picked Sarah Burton of Alexander McQueen to design her gown, reportedly bringing her to tears.

The Duchess of Cambridge tried so hard to keep the dress a secret that she even apparently had two decoy dresses made by other designers, so that in case of a leak, she could switch.

According to The Telegraph, as well as the McQueen one, two other wedding dresses were made by other British designers Bruce Oldfield (a Princess Diana favourite) and Jasper Conran.

Fashion writer Anne Chertoff told the paper at the time, 'Miss Middleton has commissioned three wedding dresses from three different designers…(she) has two "backups" should the designer of her chosen wedding dress be correctly leaked, in which case she’ll wear one of the others.'

Now, given that even though Sarah Burton's involvement was leaked and Catherine still wore her design, it could well be that these were just rumours. However she wouldn't be the first royal to have a back-up wedding gown.

Princess Diana famously had two identical wedding dresses made my David Emanuel, in case anything happened to the first one.

Meanwhile, Jackie Kennedy's dress was ruined 10 days before her wedding to John F. Kennedy when her designer's studio was flooded, so that they had to recreated it (and the bridesmaids' dresses) completely in a fraction of the time.

Penny Goldstone

Penny Goldstone is the Contributing Fashion Editor at Marie Claire UK. She writes about catwalk trends and the latest high street and Instagram sartorial must-haves. She also helms the Women Who Win franchise.

She has worked in fashion for over 10 years, contributing to publications such as Cosmopolitan, Red, Good Housekeeping, and Stylist.