Execs at Christie’s had marriage on the mind today—although perhaps not for the same reasons you did. This morning, the British auction house unloaded Elizabeth Taylor’s first wedding dress to an anonymous buyer for more than twice its original estimate. After a ferocious bidding war, the late actress’s intricately beaded gown ultimately sold for £121,875, or: just under $187,000.

Fashioned of 25 yards of satin, seed pearls, and a smattering of “bugle beads,” the costly dress demanded the attention of a 15-person team and took nearly three months to create. Despite this extraordinary craftsmanship, its original wearer paid a grand total of . . . nothing for it. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer—the studio under which Taylor was contracted at the time—commissioned famed couturier Helen Rose to design the confection for its favored ingénue and gifted her the dress in advance of her marriage to Conrad “Nicky” Hilton Jr. in 1950.

“We were honored to have been asked to handle the sale of this iconic wedding dress, which represents an important piece of Hollywood history,” said Christie’s director Nicolette Tomkinson, adding: “The dress is inextricably tied to the Golden Age of Hollywood, as well as to the extraordinary life and career of the star who wore it.”

According to MGM, “more stars than there are in heaven” attended Hilton and Taylor’s high-profile union, but the so-called “wedding of weddings” did not portend much happiness for the couple. They divorced within nine months, and the seemingly lifelong bride would go on to wed an additional seven times thereafter—in an array of elaborate ensembles.

And while today’s triumphant bidder remains anonymous, we’re willing to bet she has a narrow frame. At the time of her inaugural nuptials, Liz’s waist cinched to a gasp-worthy 20 inches.