Princess Eugenie’s Unique Engagement Ring Sparkles at Cheltenham

The last weeks of March are packed with royal birthdays. Yesterday, Princess Eugenie celebrated her day, and in her honor, we’re taking a closer look at one of her recent bejeweled appearances at Cheltenham.

There were numerous members of the royal family in attendance at the Cheltenham Festival in Gloucestershire on March 12. Queen Camilla was there, wearing her fabulous antique pansy brooches. So was Princess Eugenie, who wore a long wine-colored coat and a matching oversized halo hat for the races. Here, she’s chatting with another royal cousin, Zara Tindall, and the presenter Natalie Pinkham.

With the ensemble, Eugenie wore a really interesting pair of gem-set earrings. The earrings, which look to me like they might be vintage pieces, feature a green gemstone in the stud and a light blue gemstone drop. An emerald and an aquamarine, perhaps?

We also got an excellent look at Princess Eugenie’s gorgeous engagement ring during her day at the races, as well as her Welsh gold wedding band, which she received during her wedding ceremony at St. George’s Chapel, Windsor in 2018.

Eugenie’s ring features a floralesque diamond cluster surrounding a rare pink-orange padparadscha sapphire. At the time of the couple’s engagement, Eugenie’s husband, Jack Brooksbank, told the BBC: “I found a ring in a jeweller, and then proposed to Eugenie without it. We came back and designed the ring with diamonds around it.”

Jack and Eugenie officially announced their royal engagement at Buckingham Palace in January 2018. They posed for portraits in the Picture Gallery, showing off the new ring during the announcement press call. The couple had actually been engaged privately for a few weeks. Jack had proposed during a private holiday in Nicaragua. Though they’d been together for seven years at that point, Eugenie described the proposal as a “complete surprise.”

For Jack, the unique qualities of the padparadscha sapphire echoed the unique qualities of his bride-to-be. “What’s amazing about it is that it changes colour from every different angle that you look at it, which is what I think of Eugenie,” he explained. “She changes colour and is just so amazing.”