Ten years ago this weekend, the Queen’s eldest granddaughter married her longtime beau in a Scottish ceremony worthy of a princess. Today, we’ve got a look back at the royal jewels worn by Zara Phillips for her wedding to Mike Tindall.
The autumn of 2010 was a big moment for engagement announcements in the British royal family. A few weeks after Prince William announced his engagement to Kate Middleton, Zara Phillips revealed that she had accepted a proposal from her boyfriend, rugby star Mike Tindall. In December 2010, they posed for photographers in a casual shoot outside their Gloucestershire home to show off her new engagement ring.
Zara’s ring features a large central diamond. The platinum ring’s band, a double-row design, features pavé-set diamonds.
The couple’s wedding was celebrated at the end of July 2011 in Scotland. On the eve of their wedding, Mike and Zara were joined by their guests for a party aboard the Royal Yacht Britannia, which is now permanently docked in Edinburgh. The ship holds all sorts of memories for the Windsors, so it was a sentimental choice for Zara’s pre-wedding celebration.
With a Grecian-inspired cocktail dress, Zara kept her jewelry simple, wearing diamond studs and her diamond engagement ring.
On July 30, 2011, Zara arrived at Canongate Kirk in Edinburgh on the arm of her father, Mark Phillips, for the wedding ceremony. She wore a silk gown by British designer Stewart Parvin, who has often made clothes for her grandmother, the Queen.
Underneath her tulle veil, Zara wore two pieces of diamond jewelry with important royal connections.
She anchored the veil with Princess Andrew’s Meander Tiara. The bandeau-style tiara features traditional design elements with roots in ancient Greece: the meander (or Greek Key), the laurel wreath, and the anthemion.
As the name suggests, the tiara originally belonged to Zara’s great-grandmother, Princess Andrew of Greece and Denmark (who was born Princess Alice of Battenberg). In the portrait photograph above, taken in 1914, Alice wears the tiara. She is surrounded by her four daughters: Princess Margarita, Princess Theodora, Princess Cecilie, and Princess Sophie (the baby). Zara’s grandfather, Prince Philip, was born seven years later.
When Prince Philip married Princess Elizabeth of the United Kingdom (the present Queen) in 1947, Alice gave the meander tiara to her new daughter-in-law as a wedding present. In turn, Elizabeth gifted the tiara to her daughter, the Princess Royal. Anne has worn the tiara for more than half a century. In the photograph above, she wears it during a royal banquet in Belgrade in October 1972.
The tiara wasn’t the only piece of jewelry that Princess Anne loaned to Zara for the wedding. Zara also borrowed a pair of diamond frame earrings from her mother for the occasion.
Here’s a look at Anne wearing the same earrings during a Guildhall banquet in honor of the King and Queen of Spain in the summer of 2017. The earrings were an eighteenth-birthday gift to Anne from her parents, the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh. They’re part of a suite of diamond jewels that also includes her diamond festoon necklace.
Ten years later, the Tindalls are still happily married. They’re the parents of three children: Mia Grace, Lena Elizabeth, and little Lucas Philip, who was born just before the passing of his great-grandfather and namesake, the Duke of Edinburgh, earlier this year.
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