Up Close & Peculiar

More than 100 years ago, the globetrotting Robert Ripley began collecting artifacts from his journeys around the world, which today form the heart of the greatest collection of oddities ever assembled. Up Close & Peculiar brings the curious history of these pieces to a personal level as our very own, Allyson Iovino, explores the strange relics that lie within our Warehouse walls! Become a part of the story as we share pieces for every history buff, pop culture junkie, and oddities collector alike.

Today: The Royal Wedding Cake 

We are here in the Ripley’s warehouse today with a beautiful, gorgeous, very stale piece of wedding cake! But this is no ordinary wedding cake — this is a slice of THE Princess Diana’s wedding cake from 1981, and honestly? It doesn’t look a day over thirty!

The dessert is a fruitcake, which is traditional for royal weddings. There are a couple of reasons as to why this tradition has endured for so long, but the biggest is probably that the cake is preserved thanks to the use of rum or brandy!

This made it the ideal cake choice way back when there were no refrigerators, and it helps out the present-day bakers who sometimes spend weeks decorating the cakes for the big day. Luckily for us, it makes it so even after 41 years, it’s still technically edible! Doesn’t that sound appetizing!

Some more fun facts about the legendary fruitcake and wedding:

  • The cake stood 5 feet tall and weighed 225 pounds!
  • 750 million people watched the wedding from their homes across the world!
  • Diana’s 25-foot-long train on her wedding gown was the longest train a royal had ever had!

Tell us what you think about this iconic slice of dessert, and leave a comment if you watched Diana’s legendary wedding on tv! We hope you enjoyed this rare collectable, straight from the Ripley’s Vault!

EXPLORE THE ODD IN PERSON!

Discover hundreds of strange and unusual artifacts and get hands-on with unbelievable interactives when you visit a Ripley’s Odditorium!

FIND AN ATTRACTION NEAR YOU