Oh so true!  And I’m not talking about those little girl wanna be princesses, I’m talking about the grown up ones, like me and my princess peeps.  Recently, to celebrate our “princessness” (new word) we took a Sunday afternoon and went to pay homage to our favorite Princess…Diana.  Her travelling exhibit with THE wedding dress came to Atlanta and we just had to go see it up-close and in person!  We headed down to the exhibit in the princess van driven by Princess Paula.  Driving with PP can be fun and an adventure all by itself, but throw in Princess Dawn & Princess Michelle, well it was just a royal good time.

My pretty & SMART princesses brought tiara’s for all of us to wear.  As we were walking to the building a car-load of princesses (from a far off land)  arrived also wearing their crowns and took our picture!  Here we are getting ready to go into the exhibit:

Sooooo, we first must go to the royal throne because PP can’t go more than 20 15 minutes without a potty break ….then we finally enter the exhibit.

The entire exhibit focused naturally on Diana.  Really not much there about her sons or really about Charles (thank goodness…horrid man that he is).  There were lots of personal items of hers throughout her life. Diana was a pretty child, as we saw in pastel drawings and home movies. Earl Spencer raised Diana and her siblings after a traumatic divorce, but in other respects her childhood was uneventful, or as uneventful as someone with that pedigree can have. Diana loved to swim, dive and dance.  On exhibit is an elementary school report that says she had pleasant manners..nothing about her being very smart though.   Her late teenage years were spent as a nanny and assistant kindergarten teacher in London, where she shared an apartment that she owned with friends.

While we did get to see some lovely family jewelry, the main thing we wanted to see was naturally The Wedding Dress.

An ivory mass of  silk taffeta, lace, tulle, sequins and pearls, with a 25-foot train, Lady Diana Spencer’s 1981 wedding gown is the centerpiece of the exhibit.  Up close it somehow looked smaller than I thought it would or thought I remembered.  In photos, the train is being held up so it gives the appearance of being much longer.  We all reminisced about watching the wedding of the century. I remember staying up the whole night to see her arrive at the church.  Even then, the dress was a throw back to a different time and I don’t think it’s style has aged well, but it is gorgeous to see. 

There is a nice room or remembrance for Diana that focuses on her untimely death.  Elton John’s rewrite to “Candle in the Wind” is there and the whole speech her brother read with edits is on display.  Then you walk into the other main attraction, her dresses.  Oh my goodness, they were something to see.  Some were absolutely beautiful, others not so hot.  You can see how her clothing size went down (remember she was bulimic) through the years, but her elegance went UP!  She wore these clothes for special events and she wore them to do her charitable work. Really, looking at someone’s clothing can make you feel so close to them…isn’t that interesting.



The exhibit ends with a wall showing books of condolences from all over the world.  That’s such a testimony on how she was loved, whether she deserved that adulation or not. 

The entire exhibit, like its subject, is intellectually slight, charming, and unexpectedly moving.  As you leave the exhibit you see this famous photo of Diana (oh aren’t those princesses with her awdorable!)  Tiara’s and pearls…simply divine. What a fun outing.