Queen Elizabeth Caused a ‘Bit of a Fluster’ at William and Kate’s Royal Wedding With an Etiquette Slip
Even royal weddings don’t always go to plan as evidenced by Prince William and Kate Middleton’s 2011 nuptials. There was a small hiccup when Queen Elizabeth II didn’t follow the rules just before the Prince and Princess of Wales got married. She didn’t wear white to the ceremony, although she has before. This time around, the queen’s car pulled up on the wrong side, putting her at odds with royal etiquette.
Queen Elizabeth got out of the car on the ‘wrong’ side at William and Kate’s wedding
Even leaders of the British royal family don’t always follow etiquette. On April 29, 2011, Queen Elizabeth arrived at Westminster Abbey in London, England, for the wedding of her grandson, William.
That day, the car transporting Prince Philip and the queen to the ceremony pulled up with the monarch on the street side. As etiquette expert Alexandra Messervy shared on A Right Royal podcast, royal etiquette states women are supposed to get out of the car at the curb.
“The Queen got out on the wrong side, and there was a bit of a fluster,” Messervy said (via Us Weekly). “The correct protocol for her was to be on the curb side, and she was on the reverse side.”
The expert went on to explain that the protocol dates back to a time when horse-drawn carriages were the main mode of transportation. Royal women, she said, got out at the curb to “avoid the mud.”
Other things went wrong at William and Kate’s wedding besides the queen’s royal etiquette slip-up
Although William and Kate had, in many ways, a fairytale wedding—just look at them walking down the aisle in the above video—their nuptials didn’t exactly go off without a hitch. That’s right, things went wrong at the royal wedding broadcast to millions of people all around the world.
Kate didn’t arrive at the church with a wrinkled wedding dress like her late mother-in-law, Princess Diana, and William didn’t stumble through his vows. Rather, William had a difficult time getting the bride’s wedding ring on her finger.
Then their getaway car, an Aston Martin Queen Elizabeth gifted King Charles III in 1969, kept stalling. If that wasn’t enough, a frightened horse knocked their rider off during the couple’s procession after the ceremony.
13 years later—William and Kate celebrated their wedding anniversary on April 29, 2024—the couple’s married with three children living in Windsor, England, at Adelaide Cottage. They even gave the world a glimpse inside their wedding by releasing a never-before-seen photo to mark the occasion.
Queen Elizabeth liked when things didn’t go according to plan
Exiting the car on the “wrong” side at William and Kate’s royal wedding or any of the other things that went wrong at the ceremony probably didn’t bother the late queen.
The reason, according to her former deputy private secretary Samantha Cohen, is because the monarch liked a bit of a shake-up at events.
“The Queen had no ego,” Cohen told Australia’s The Herald Sun. “She was so comfortable in herself, yet she loved it when things went wrong. Say, perhaps, “if a cake was not cutting or a plaque didn’t unveil.”
Why? “Because everything was so perfectly organized, it spiced her life up when things went wrong,” Cohen explained.
