Lady Sarah’s Romantic Royal Wedding Jewels

I’m sure someone will comment that the jewels from this wedding aren’t exactly royal, as Sarah doesn’t have a royal title, but she’s the granddaughter and niece of British monarchs, and the daughter of a royal princess, so she’s still a member of the royal family. Lady Sarah’s parents were Princess Margaret and Antony Armstrong-Jones, the 1st Earl of Snowdon. She inherited her father’s artistic eye, and her wedding ensemble definitely reflected an artistic, romantic sensibility.

Daniel and Sarah were married at St Stephen Walbrook, a church in the city of London that was designed by Sir Christopher Wren. At the time of the wedding, which took place on July 14, 1994, the rector of the church was Dr. Chad Varah, an important social activist who founded the Samaritans, the world’s first crisis hotline. Sarah was attended by a trio of bridesmaids: her half-sister, Lady Frances Armstrong-Jones; her cousin, Zara Phillips; and a family friend, Tara Noble-Singh.

Sarah’s new husband is an artist and also a former professional actor. His acting career was the reason that the two met: he was working on a film in India (James Ivory’s Heat and Dust) when he first met Sarah, who was shadowing her father during the production of A Passage to India. Intriguingly, he had also played a member of the Windsor family—Sarah’s cousin, the Duke of York—in a 1982 TV movie about Charles and Diana. (On the wedding day, Charles and Diana, by then separated, grabbed headlines when they both attended the wedding, arriving and departing separately. They sat during the service with the Queen Mother between them. Charles attended the reception afterward at Clarence House; Diana did not.)

For her wedding, Sarah wore a dress made by English fashion designer Jasper Conran. Papers noted that the “white silk georgette and organza gown, with shoes by Manolo Blahnik, was complemented by a country garden bouquet dominated by old English roses.” Conran also designed the bridesmaids’ dresses.

Sarah borrowed her bridal jewelry from her mother, Princess Margaret. She wore the Snowdon Floral Tiara, a set of floral brooches set on a tiara frame. The brooches had been a gift from her father to her mother. On the wedding day, the tiara was surrounded by a wreath of greenery, continuing the English garden theme. She also borrowed diamond and pearl drop earrings from her mother’s collection for the occasion. Both the tiara/brooches and the earrings are now owned by Sarah.

Press reports from the day noted that the couple wore plain gold wedding bands purchased from Wartski’s. Sarah’s engagement ring, “an early 19th-century diamond cluster, with table-cut stones, set in silver and surrounded by a red-gold shank chased with roses,” had also been sourced from the same firm.