When Meghan Markle wed Prince Harry two years ago, she wanted to add a special tribute to the UK in her wedding dress and accessories.
Not only did she pick a British female designer, Clare Waight Keller (who at the time worked for French couture house Givenchy), to design her gown, but she asked her to help make it extra special.
This resulted in her intricate wedding veil, which was embroidered with 53 flora and fauna, one each to represent all of the Commonwealth countries.
The veil itself was made from silk tulle, with flowers embroidered in silk and organza. These included the lotus flower for Malawi, the blue water Lily for Sri Lanka, the Maltese Centaury and the Thistle of Scotland to name just a few.
The designer recently revealed, 'Through hours of conversation, meetings together, and research, slowly all the pieces of that story came together. Purity and simplicity were the guiding principles, a narrative of nature through the 53 florals of the Commonwealth to bring the world into the journey of the ceremony and subtlety bringing the lines of Givenchy and the history of the Maison to capture the classical timeless beauty I knew she wanted to achieve.'
The Givenchy team also added crops of wheat, to symbolise love and charity.
Meanwhile, Meghan asked to have two extra flowers added to her veil, to illustrate two other specific moments of her life. These were the wintersweet, which grows in the grounds of Kensington Palace in front of Nottingham Cottage, where she and Prince Harry first lived when they got engaged.
The second was the California Poppy, which is of course the State flower from the Duchess of Sussex's place of birth, California.
