Today’s royal bride in pearls comes from the extended Dutch royal family. Here’s a closer look at the diamond and pearl wedding jewels worn by Princess Annemarie of Bourbon-Parma.
Annemarie Gualthérie van Weezel, a political journalist working in The Hague and Brussels, arrived on the arm of her father, Hans, for the wedding. (Hans Gualthérie van Weezel is a noted Dutch diplomat and politician who has also served as the country’s ambassador to Luxembourg.)
Annemarie’s groom, Prince Carlos of Bourbon-Parma, occupies a really interesting spot in the European royal family tree. He’s the eldest son of Princess Irene of the Netherlands (daughter of Queen Juliana, sister of Princess Beatrix, and aunt of King Willem-Alexander) and Prince Carlos Hugo, the late head of the royal House of Bourbon-Parma. Irene and Carlos Hugo’s marriage was exceptionally controversial, causing a constitutional crisis in the Netherlands. This was, in part, because Carlos Hugo was one of the Carlist claimants of the Spanish throne. (I’ll just direct you here for the basics on that topic.) Prince Carlos, then, is a first cousin of the Dutch king as well as the current head of the House of Bourbon-Parma—and, according to some, the Carlist King of Spain. (While he has never formally renounced his claim to the Spanish throne, Prince Carlos has made it clear that he’s not interested in challenging King Felipe VI for the job.)
After the November 2010 ceremony, which was held at La Cambre Abbey in Brussels, Prince Carlos and Princess Annemarie were showered with rice. The couple’s civil wedding had been held months earlier, in June 2010 in the Netherlands. The religious ceremony was postponed because of the ill health of Carlos’s father, who died in August 2010. After several months of mourning, the wedding was rescheduled for November.
Princess Annemarie wore a sophisticated gown with a very long train and an elaborate cathedral-length veil for the religious wedding.
She also borrowed a tiara from the Dutch royal vaults. This pearl and diamond tiara is a secondary setting of the Dutch Emerald Parure Tiara. The tiara was commissioned by Queen Emma from Schürmann in 1899 as a gift for Queen Wilhelmina (the great-grandmother of the groom).
Princess Annemarie paired the antique tiara with a pair of diamond and pearl drop earrings.
The couple recently celebrated their tenth wedding anniversary. They have three children: Princess Luisa, Princess Cecilia, and Prince Carlos Enrique.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.