Our survey of 18th birthday tiaras gifted to Scandinavian princesses lands in Norway today, where we’ve got a closer look at the last tiara presented to a young Norwegian princess: the tiara presented by King Olav V to his granddaughter, Princess Märtha Louise.
Princess Märtha Louise, the only daughter of King Harald V and Queen Sonja of Norway, celebrated her 18th birthday in September 1989. At the time, her grandfather, King Olav V, was still on the throne. He presented her with a petite diamond and pearl tiara with a modern wheat-ear design. Here, in June 1992, she wears the tiara for the silver wedding anniversary celebrations for Queen Margrethe II and Prince Henrik of Denmark. (Queen Sonja, standing beside her, wears the Norwegian emeralds.)
While many of the Scandinavian birthday tiaras we’ve discussed so far have been springboards to larger and more significant pieces, the diamond and pearl tiara has remained Märtha Louise’s most-worn jewel for the past three decades. (She has occasionally worn other tiaras from the family vaults, notably the smaller setting of Queen Maud’s Pearl Tiara and the Norwegian Amethyst Parure Tiara.) On one occasion, she even loaned her birthday gift tiara to her mother.
Here, Märtha Louise wears the tiara for a diplomatic event: a gala dinner during a state visit from Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands in 2010. (She’s standing beside her aunt, Princess Astrid, who wears Queen Alexandra’s Turquoise Circlet.) But because Märtha Louise is not a working member of the Norwegian royal family, but rather has a private career, she’s more frequently spotted wearing the tiara at family events like birthday and wedding celebrations.
In June 1997, she wore the tiara for a gala during the joint 60th birthday celebrations for her parents.
A decade later, she wore the tiara on the balcony of the Royal Palace in Oslo during Harald and Sonja’s 70th birthday celebrations in February 2007.
And in May 2017, she wore the tiara again for a gala dinner during the joint celebrations for Harald and Sonja’s 80th birthdays.
She’s also worn the tiara often for the weddings of her royal cousins abroad. Here, she wears the jewel in Copenhagen for the wedding of Crown Prince Frederik and Crown Princess Mary of Denmark in May 2004.
She wore the tiara with moonstones for another Danish royal wedding in May 2008: the marriage of Prince Joachim and Princess Marie in Mogeltonder.
In October 2012, she brought the tiara to Luxembourg to wear during the celebrations of the wedding of Hereditary Grand Duke Guillaume and Hereditary Grand Duchess Stephanie.
And in June 2015, she wore the tiara placed further back on her head for the wedding of Prince Carl Philip and Princess Sofia of Sweden in Stockholm.
We’ll have to wait and see whether Märtha Louise wears her birthday gift tiara on Friday evening for her niece’s big royal birthday gala in Oslo. She’ll be attending with her fiancé, Durek Verrett, and her three daughters. Above, a glimpse of the princess arriving with Verrett at last night’s government dinner in Ingrid Alexandra’s honor.
Here’s Princess Ingrid Alexandra with her parents, brothers, and grandparents (plus the prime minister) at Thursday evening’s dinner. Since I wrote about my tiara predictions for tomorrow’s event last weekend, we’ve gotten a much more thorough guest list for the event. Here are the potential tiara wearers we’re expecting to see tonight. We’re expecting tiara debut moments from the future reigning Queens of Norway, Belgium, and the Netherlands!
NORWAY: Queen Sonja, Crown Princess Mette-Marit, Princess Ingrid Alexandra, Princess Astrid, Princess Märtha Louise (and possibly ML’s eldest daughter? All three will attend)
SWEDEN: Crown Princess Victoria (who will be accompanied by her husband and children, though Estelle is too young for a tiara)
DENMARK: Crown Princess Mary
THE NETHERLANDS: Queen Máxima, Princess Amalia
BELGIUM: Queen Mathilde, Princess Elisabeth
LUXEMBOURG: Hereditary Grand Duchess Stephanie
NON-REIGNING ROYALS: Crown Princess Marie-Chantal and Princess Olympia (former Greek royal family); Rosario Nadal and Princesses Mafalda-Cecilia and Olimpia, as well as Prince Kyril’s partner, Katharine Butler (former Bulgarian royal family)
A programming note: I’ll be putting up a post about the gala dinner later on today when photos become available, so there won’t be a traditional afternoon post. The gala dinner article will also serve as our first weekend post; the second, a Royal Ascot recap, will be up on Sunday.
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