--- title: Oprah Narrowly Avoided a Royal Wedding Fashion Disaster description: Oprah had to make an important last-minute dress change before attending Meghan Markle and Prince Harry's royal wedding. canonical: https://time.com/5285402/oprah-royal-wedding-dress/ author: Raisa Bruner article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-05-21T15:08:24.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-06-24T06:56:38.296Z og:title: How Oprah Narrowly Avoided a Royal Wedding Faux-Pas og:description: Oprah's dress for Meghan Markle's royal wedding was a last-minute change og:url: https://time.com/5285402/oprah-royal-wedding-dress/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt48096ce4264fda5b/698930fce76ad259dc632125/oprah-royal-wedding-windsor.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3123 og:image:height: 1757 og:image:alt: TOPSHOT-BRITAIN-US-ROYALS-WEDDING-GUESTS og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: How Oprah Narrowly Avoided a Royal Wedding Faux-Pas twitter:description: Oprah's dress for Meghan Markle's royal wedding was a last-minute change twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt48096ce4264fda5b/698930fce76ad259dc632125/oprah-royal-wedding-windsor.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # How Oprah Avoided a Royal Wedding Fashion Faux-Pas at the Last Minute > Sponsored content. 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It curates the day's top headlines with TIME's reporting and analysis across politics, world affairs, business, health and culture. It is free to join at time.com/newsletters. #### How do I sign up for The Brief? The Brief is available free at time.com/newsletters, where readers can select it along with any of TIME's other six newsletters. There is no subscription required to receive it. #### Is The Brief free? Yes. The Brief is a free daily email newsletter from TIME. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes The Brief? The Brief is led by editor Richard Hall and draws on reporting from TIME's newsroom. Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-brief-2026q3/newsletters?i=40273729-7730-4ee3-aa7f-e37c29613500&cr=time-nl-brief-2026q3-v1) ## Video: This Video Is No Longer Available [Watch (HLS stream): This Video Is No Longer Available](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/fKodeUO6.m3u8) (0:10)  _Published 2026-06-23. Stella McCartney came through for Oprah in her time of need_  by [Raisa Bruner](https://time.com/author/raisa-bruner/)  ## Raisa Bruner May 21, 2018 3:08 PM UTC  by [Raisa Bruner](https://time.com/author/raisa-bruner/)  ## Raisa Bruner May 21, 2018 3:08 PM UTC There’s one rule for attending weddings, royal or regular: only the bride gets to wear a white dress. But [Oprah Winfrey](http://time.com/5283423/oprah-royal-wedding/), one of the surprise invitees to Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s [royal wedding](http://time.com/5285412/royal-wedding-official-photos/) over the weekend, nearly broke this cardinal rule when she realized that her dress for the occasion was the wrong shade of beige and “would photograph too ‘white'” on the big day. Luckily, if you’re Oprah you have access to the world’s best design teams who can pull out all the stops to create a custom look for you overnight. Winfrey was able to swap out her original outfit for something in a more appropriate shade of pale pink. “I would like to thank the [Stella McCartney](http://time.com/5245124/meghan-markle-reception-dress/) team for working all night long to get this dress finished,” she explained in a video posted to Instagram. “Because we had Dressgate. Wrong color! Now we got the right color. I think we’re gonna do OK. But no. Thank you so much for the detail, working all night, to the whole Stella McCartney team. Amen, amen, amen, Stella McCartney team, thank you very much!” According to her caption, Winfrey didn’t realize until Friday evening that her first dress pick would end up being an inappropriate color in the light of day and the flash of cameras. (The wedding was Saturday morning at [Windsor Castle](http://time.com/5284103/fans-windsor-react-prince-harry-meghan-wedding/) outside of London.) So McCartney’s team — also responsible for standout fashion of the day including Markle’s [evening reception](http://time.com/5276277/royal-wedding-live/) gown and [Amal Clooney](http://time.com/5283429/amal-clooney-royal-wedding-2018/)‘s sunshine-yellow look — whipped up a suitable replacement in mere hours. On the bright side, Oprah already had the right accessories: an elaborate hat by famed milliner [Philip Treacy](http://time.com/3797310/the-milliner-philip-treacy-by-kevin-davies/), which she said she’s had in her closet since 2005 and just required a refresher on its fluffy feather adornment. “OMG was this an extraordinary day!” she wrote on her Instagram. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5285402/oprah-royal-wedding-dress/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5285402/oprah-royal-wedding-dress/"},"headline":"How Oprah Avoided a Royal Wedding Fashion Faux-Pas at the Last Minute","datePublished":"2018-05-21T15:08:24.000Z","dateModified":"2026-06-24T06:56:38.296Z","description":"Stella McCartney came through for Oprah in her time of need","url":"https://time.com/5285402/oprah-royal-wedding-dress/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Oprah","royal wedding"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt48096ce4264fda5b/698930fce76ad259dc632125/oprah-royal-wedding-windsor.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Raisa Bruner","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/raisa-bruner/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt48096ce4264fda5b/698930fce76ad259dc632125/oprah-royal-wedding-windsor.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"TOPSHOT-BRITAIN-US-ROYALS-WEDDING-GUESTS","caption":"TOPSHOT-BRITAIN-US-ROYALS-WEDDING-GUESTS","creditText":"IAN WEST—AFP/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5285402/oprah-royal-wedding-dress/","name":"How Oprah Avoided a Royal Wedding Fashion Faux-Pas at the Last Minute"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"This Video Is No Longer Available","description":"Stella McCartney came through for Oprah in her time of need","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/fKodeUO6/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2026-06-23T15:00:44.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/fKodeUO6.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/5285402/oprah-royal-wedding-dress/","duration":"PT10S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/5285402/oprah-royal-wedding-dress/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```