Royals Kate Middleton's Wedding Dress Embroiderer on How They Kept 'Everything a Total Secret' Kate Middleton's iconic dress was secretly created by a 50-strong team By Phil Boucher Phil Boucher Phil Boucher is an editor at PEOPLE and based in London. People Editorial Guidelines Published on April 29, 2021 09:00 AM Share Tweet Pin Email Photo: Paul Hackett/Getty Kate Middleton's stunning wedding dress will go down in history as an all-time iconic fashion moment. Yet the iconic gown that she wore 10 years ago today didn't simply fall together overnight. "Kate had her final fitting at (Alexander McQueen designer) Sarah Burton's salon early in the morning the day before her wedding," embroiderer Chloe Savage recalls in this week's issue of PEOPLE about Kate's 2011 royal wedding to Prince William. "Brides have a tendency to do things like drop half a stone (seven pounds) before a wedding and as her dress was going to be seen from every conceivable angle by a billion people, you couldn't have it being a bit saggy because she'd lost weight or gained a couple of ounces due to stress." Chloe Savage. Catherine East "We were all sitting around the studio at about nine o'clock waiting for the dress to come back with any final adjustments," Chloe continues. "We hadn't finalized the lace down the seams yet. We had most of it on the dress but had left the lace loose in the seam to accommodate for that final fitting." Thankfully for Chloe and the other members of the 50-strong team that secretly toiled away for months ahead of the wedding, Kate's Chantilly lace dress needed very few last-minute alterations. The end result was show-stopping. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. Peter Macdiarmid/Getty "We had the dress finished by about 9 p.m. but were still tweaking the lace on the shoes until about 10 p.m.," adds Chloe. "Around 10 p.m., Sarah Burton did her final inspection, then we carefully packed everything all up and handed it to the guy who was escorting the dress to Kate. We then went to the pub for a drink!" Listen below to the episode of our daily podcast PEOPLE Every Day as we look back at Prince William and Kate Middleton's wedding 10 years later. After catching the last train home, Chloe woke the next morning to watch the wedding on TV with her daughter. Get the premiere issue of PEOPLE Royals for glamorous new photos and inside stories royals fans haven't seen or read elsewhere! Subscribe at peopleroyals.com/launch Kate Middleton. Indigo/Getty Images "She didn't know what I'd been up to for months and was quite excited when I told her that mummy had dressed a princess," says Chloe. What followed was a day filled with joy, excitement – and a huge amount of relief! "Our involvement was more during the months before the actual wedding," says Chloe, who quietly worked on the dress in the seclusion of historic Hampton Court Palace, using rooms that were later found to be standing on the foundations of Anne Boleyn's private apartments. Michael and Kate Middleton. Paul Gilham/Getty Can't get enough of PEOPLE's Royals coverage? Sign up for our free Royals newsletter to get the latest updates on Kate Middleton, Meghan Markle and more! "On the day, it was a case of 'Oh thank God, we've done it!' but also with an incredible sense of pride," she adds. "And a bit of shock too, because actually, you've not properly realized what you've been working on until you see the pictures of Kate splashed across every TV screen, newspaper and website! "When we were making the dress, we had to keep everything a total secret," Chloe adds. "But I have to confess that I might have texted a few mates during the ceremony to say 'By the way...!"