Let them eat cake — or perhaps, in this case, not! A slice of Prince Charles and Princess Diana’s wedding cake will soon be auctioned off, despite the fact that it is 40 years old.
The 28-ounce piece of cake will go up for auction on August 11 and could garner £500, which equals nearly $700. The portion has been kept in plastic wrap inside a decorative tin for the four decades since Charles, now 72, married Diana. The slice is 8 inches by 7 inches and features a pristine royal coat of arms in blue, red and gold.
The treat was gifted from the Queen Mother — the late grandmother of the groom — to a then Clarence House employee named Moyra Smith. The relic will be among a group of items from the ceremony sold, including an order of service and a royal wedding breakfast program.
The Prince and Princess of Wales served fruitcake — as is royal tradition — at their wedding reception. The five-tier confection was five feet tall and 225 pounds.
Charles and Diana tied the knot at St Paul’s Cathedral in London on July 29, 1981. They later welcomed Prince William in June 1982 and Prince Harry in September 1984.
Although their nuptials played like something out of a fairytale, then Prime Minister John Major confirmed their separation in December 1992. They finalized their divorce in August 1996, and Diana died at age 36 one year later following a car accident in Paris. Charles went on to marry Duchess Camilla in April 2005.
William, 39, and Duchess Kate followed in his parents’ footsteps at their April 2011 wedding, selecting an eight-tier masterpiece that was made up of 17 individual fruitcakes. They subsequently served tiers from the cake at their children Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis’ christenings, in keeping with British tradition.
Wedding cake designer Fiona Cairns exclusively told Us Weekly in April that the Duchess of Cambridge, 39, “was the visionary” behind the creation.
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“She is actually very creative,” Cairns explained at the time. “I think in America fruitcake is not something that people would choose for [their] wedding, but that is very traditionally what couples — well, not so much these days. They still do have fruitcake, but going back to Queen Victoria’s time, Queen Victoria started with the tradition of fruitcake as a wedding cake. And it was really the wealthy who could afford it and then it became more mainstream.”
Harry, 36, and Meghan Markle, for their part, broke from tradition by having a lemon and elderflower cake at their May 2018 wedding. Baker Claire Ptak told Eater London at the time that she offered the couple “one (traditional) fruitcake option” but they encouraged her “to think outside of the box” for the dessert.
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