41-year-old slice of cake from King Charles and Princess Diana’s wedding sells for £170 at auction

A slice of cake, served at the wedding of King Charles III and Princess Diana in 1981, recently went up for sale and was sold for a whopping £170 (or $190). The 41-year-old cake slice is believed to be from the bottom layer of the five-tier fruit cake.
Wondering who kept it safe all these years? It was Nigel Ricketts, one of the wedding guests who also worked as a French polisher and furniture restorer at Windsor Castle from 1980-1985 and passed away earlier this year. Preserved in its original presentation box, the cake box includes the Prince of Wales’ insignia, the initials C and D in calligraphy and ‘Buckingham Palace 29th July 1981’ written on the bottom of the box.
Auctioned Dore and Rees Auctions in the UK, the cake slice went up for sale with a pre-sale estimate of £300. However, it was eventually sold for £170, way below the expected price but still astonishingly high for an inedible cake slice.
A piece of cake from the wedding of King Charles III and Princess Diana (Source: doreandrees.com)
Reportedly, the slice was from the centrepiece cake which had five layers and was one of the 23 official wedding cakes prepared for one of the biggest royal weddings. In 2014, a slice of the same cake was sold for £990.
“These items were laid out on a table for us to view a friend of the late Mr Ricketts. The cake was in its original box which wasn’t sealed. You probably wouldn’t want to eat it now but the amount of alcohol probably preserved it and it still looks like a slice of wedding cake which has kept its shape and form,” Guy Taylor, head of interior sales at Dore and Rees, told the Daily Mail.

King Charles III and Princess Diana, the Princess of Wales, tied the knot on July 29, 1981, in a grand royal wedding ceremony which was viewed around 750 million people worldwide. Held at St Paul’s Cathedral in London, the wedding continues to remain the most-watched royal wedding to date.
However, the couple’s happily-ever-after was short-lived as they announced their separation in 1992 before finalising their divorce in 1996. A year later, Princess Diana passed away in a car crash and King Charles went on to Camilla Parker Bowles in 2005. The latter assumed the title of Queen Consort after Queen Elizabeth II’s death on September 8, 2022.
📣 For more lifestyle news, follow us on Instagram | Twitter | Facebook and don’t miss out on the latest updates!