The Prince and Princess of Wales return to Buckingham Palace by carriage after their wedding, 29th July 1981. She wears a wedding dress by David and Elizabeth Emmanuel and the Spencer family tiara.
The Archbishop of Canterbury will preside over the royal wedding ceremony, in keeping with this traditional responsibility as the principal leader of the Church of England. Archbishop Justin Welby presided over the vows of Prince William and Kate Middleton, and he'll reprise that role for Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's wedding. In this photo, the Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Fisher blesses the marriage of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip in 1947.
Prince Harry will wear a military uniform during the ceremony, which is traditional for royal grooms, as many members of the British royal family have served in the military. In this photo from his brother's wedding, Prince Harry, dressed in his uniform, waves to the crowd as he makes the journey by carriage to Buckingham Palace.
In Meghan Markle's bouquet, she will carry a sprig of myrtle, like every royal bride has since Queen Victoria's wedding to Prince Albert. As a wedding gift from Albert's grandmother, Queen Victoria received a sprig of myrtle, which she later planted. She gave a sprig from that plant to her daughter for her wedding, and every royal bride since then has carried a sprig from that same plant in her bouquet. The photo above shows a recreation of Kate Middleton's wedding bouquet, which included the traditional sprig.
The royal fanfare, played by the State Trumpeters on instruments bearing a royal coat of arms, is used to announce the queen's arrival and will announce her entrance at Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's wedding. The couple will break slightly from tradition at their ceremony, however, by including Lance Corporal Kate Sandford, who will be the first woman from the band of the Household Cavalry to play the fanfare.
It's traditional for royal brides to wear tiaras, considered in classical antiquity to be an emblem of the loss of innocence to the crowning of love, on their wedding day. There is much debate about what Meghan Markle's tiara will look like, including whether or not the queen will lend her one for the occasion, which is also a tradition. This photo shows the Cartier "Halo" tiara, worn by Kate Middleton on her wedding day, which the queen loaned to her for the ceremony.
Royal wedding cakes tend to be several feet tall and comprised of many layers, often using a base of traditional British fruitcake. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle will modify the tradition by including a lemon-and-elderflower cake at their reception. The cake pictured above, made for Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip's wedding, was nine feet tall.
Many royal brides have worn a wedding dress that is white, reflecting Queen Victoria's bridal influence. Here, Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon leaves her home for her wedding to the Duke of York, the future King George VI, in 1923, wearing her white wedding gown.
Though Kate Middleton wore a white dress on her wedding day in 2011, the royal family has not yet shared whether Meghan Markle's dress will follow the tradition.