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Diana, A Celebration

Or rip-off.... I really wanted to see this http://www.dianaexhibition.com/home.htm while it was in Atlanta. So Sunday morning off I went! I thought I'd save money by buying my ticket there (as opposed to online from Ticketmaster). Imagine my surprise when there was a $1 surcharge added to all tickets bought at the ticket window.....?

The Exhibit is 4 large rooms and 4 little (ie. 1-2 cases on display). I read everything (except 1 case of childhood "stuffs" that was causing a bottleneck)...it took me 45 minutes to get through.

I'll save you $20 and tell you to read all the tabs on the above web-site.

Some highlights (cause I HAVE to find something good in it!):
Wedding dress - it was pretty cool to see in person. I overheard one couple discussing in the room prior to the dress.
Woman: "Did you see the dress"
Man: "yes"
Woman: "How did it look?"
Man: "old"
That made me chuckle! It did look old (lets face it, 1981 style is not "in" currently!), but it also had hints of antique features which I found interesting.
There was an umbrella to match ("in case of rain") and that made me laugh because have you seen the train on that dress? No umbrella was going to keep it dry! Interesting fact about the dress: Diana's mother paid $1,900 for the wedding dress AND all the bridesmaid/flower girl dresses...for some reason I expected that number to be a LOT higher!

The dresses gallery - I did enjoy this. Checking out hemlines and whether I thought her waist stayed the same or got smaller. There was a description about each dress and who made/where she wore it. I remembered a lot of them from photos. I also met a guy in there who had seen Diana in one of the dresses on display. It was neat to hear his story.

Overall = disappointment. But at least 10% of the profit is going to the Princess' Charity. I guess that's slightly redeeming (although I bet if they put a collection box in the exhibit they'd make bank!). The gift shop was also disappointing. Not sure if they don't have the rights to do much with her name, but everything was related to her childhood home (Althorp, where her brother currently resides). And they were out of stock on most things. One thing I thought interesting was the lack of mention of her boys. I saw 2 pictures total of them (there might have been a glimpse of them in 2 videos). Maybe it is the family respecting the pledge given at her funeral to try to let the boys be normal. But if that woman really loved those boys as much as everyone says, wouldn't it be natural to make them a prominant part of this exhibit?

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