royal wedding – Page 4

Love on the Nile: Egyptian Wedding Jewels of Princess Margaret of Connaught

02.16.2021 by The Court Jeweller // Leave a Comment

Princess Margaret of Connaught and Prince Gustaf Adolf of Sweden (Wikimedia Commons)

One of the most fascinating royal romances of the 20th century belonged to King Gustaf VI Adolf of Sweden and his first wife, Princess Margaret of Connaught. Today, we’ve got the story of how the two royals fell in love on the Nile, as well as a look at some of the Egyptian-connected jewels they received as wedding presents a few months later.
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The British Royal Family’s Favorite Wedding Tiara

02.15.2021 by The Court Jeweller // Leave a Comment

Benjamin Wheeler/Press Association

Our posts this month so far have been focused on love—specifically sparkly royal engagement rings—and we’re continuing the theme this week with a closer look at some important royal wedding tiaras. Today, we’ve got the story of the tiara that has been chosen most often by Windsor family brides: Queen Mary’s Fringe Tiara.

Royal Collection

The tiara is more than a century old. Made in 1919 using gold, silver, and diamonds recycled from her own wedding tiara, Queen Mary’s Fringe Tiara is a classic and elegant example of the fringe design. Reimagining her wedding tiara was an especially bold move when you consider that the jewel had been one of her wedding presents from Queen Victoria. But she’d rarely worn the tiara after her wedding day, and she would end up getting much more use from the new, more modern fringe.

Left: Queen Mary wears Queen Adelaide’s Fringe as a tiara; Right: Queen Mary wears her own diamond fringe tiara

Queen Mary commissioned the piece as a more modern and more wearable version of Queen Adelaide’s Diamond Fringe Tiara (which is now set, presumably semi-permanently, as a necklace). In the photographs above, she wears Queen Adelaide’s Fringe (sometimes called the Hanoverian Fringe) on the left, and her newer, more modern fringe tiara on the right. With Queen Adelaide’s Fringe on the left, she’s also wearing the Love Trophy Collar and Prince Albert’s Brooch. With her own fringe on the right, she wears the Cullinan V and the Cullinan VI and VIII Brooches together as a mini-stomacher.

AFP via Getty Images

In December 1936, Queen Mary’s daughter-in-law, the Duchess of York, became Queen Elizabeth. After the accession, Queen Mary handed over several important pieces of royal jewelry to the new queen consort. One of those pieces was her diamond fringe tiara. Queen Elizabeth wore the tiara, along with the Coronation Diamonds and her own diamond riviere, for portraits taken around the time of her coronation in 1937.

AFP via Getty Images

In November 1947, Queen Elizabeth loaned the tiara to her daughter, Princess Elizabeth, to wear on her wedding day. Of course, many of us have heard the most famous anecdote about the tiara and this royal wedding: the jewel’s frame famously snapped in half shortly before the future Queen Elizabeth II was due to walk down the aisle at Westminster Abbey. The tiara was hastily repaired, but you can tell in some photographs of the princess from the day that there’s a slight extra space between some of the fringes, thanks to the quick fix.

After the royal wedding—and presumably also after a more permanent repair of its frame—the tiara returned to Queen Elizabeth’s jewelry box. Above, she wears it for the royal film premiere of The Mudlark, which featured Irene Dunne as Queen Victoria, in October 1950. The piece remained with her after the death of her husband, King George VI, in 1952, as well as during her long widowhood, when the world came to know her best as the Queen Mother.

Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

In November 1973, the Queen Mother loaned the tiara for a royal bride for the second time. Princess Anne chose the tiara to wear at Westminster Abbey for her wedding to Captain Mark Phillips. Though the Associated Press described the young princess as a woman who “prefers jeans to jewels,” the tiara was a glittering part of her medieval-inspired ensemble on the wedding day. The tiara anchored a veil that was also lent by the Queen Mum, and which had also been worn by Queen Elizabeth II.

Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

When the Queen Mother died in 2002, the tiara was inherited by Queen Elizabeth II, who still owns it today. It’s not become a fixture in her tiara rotation, but we have gotten to see it a few times in public since. In 2007, the tiara was displayed, along with the Hanoverian pearls, in an exhibit of the Queen’s wedding gown. The display coincided with the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh’s diamond wedding anniversary.

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In November 2009, the Queen wore the tiara for a banquet in Port of Spain, Trinidad, during a tour of the Caribbean. On that occasion, she paired it with diamond and ruby jewels, including the Baring Ruby Necklace and Queen Mary’s Ruby Cluster Earrings. It was the first time she had worn the tiara in public since her wedding day more than sixty years earlier.

Julian Calder for Governor-General of New Zealand/Wikimedia Commons

In 2011, the Queen, as Queen of New Zealand, posed in the tiara for a new official government portrait. She created a mirrored jewelry look by pairing the tiara with another fringe from her collection: the City of London Fringe Necklace, which had been one of her wedding presents in 1947. (To answer a frequent question: no, the necklace cannot also be worn as a tiara, because it is threaded on silk.) She also wore one of Queen Mary’s Chain-Link Bracelets, and, very appropriately, the New Zealand Silver Fern Brooch. The new portrait, taken by Julian Calder, was published on February 7, 2012, as part of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations. The same year, the tiara was photographed in wonderful close-up detail for The Queen’s Diamonds.

Benjamin Wheeler/Press Association

Almost a decade later, the tiara was worn again for a British royal wedding. This time, Princess Beatrice of York, the Queen’s second granddaughter, became the third royal bride to don the tiara on her wedding day. (Really, the fourth, if you count Queen Mary, who wore the same diamonds set in another tiara!) She married Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi at the Royal Chapel of All Saints on the grounds of Royal Lodge, the former home of the Queen Mother and the current residence of Beatrice’s father.

Benjamin Wheeler/Press Association

Princess Beatrice wore Queen Mary’s tiara with a vintage Norman Hartnell gown that belonged to the Queen, underscoring her love for vintage fashion. The loans also, of course, emphasize the Queen’s love for her granddaughter—and the sentimental importance of the tiara to the women of the Windsor family. (It was a favorite jewelry moment of ours last year, too!)

Diamonds and Gold: Swedish Royal Engagement Rings

02.11.2021 by The Court Jeweller // Leave a Comment

Patrik Osterberg-Pool/Getty Images

Many Swedes actually don’t exchange elaborate engagement rings; they often swap simpler gold bands for the engagement, saving the more glittering ring for the bride on the wedding day. Some of the Bernadottes have followed this tradition, while others have exchanged sparkling engagement gifts. Let’s have a look at some of the rings that engaged Swedish royals have worn over the years, shall we?

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The first of the Haga princesses to marry was Princess Birgitta, who announced her engagement to Prince Johann Georg of Hohenzollern on December 19, 1960. The photograph above is of their engagement announcement; you can see that they’ve apparently followed the traditional Swedish custom of exchanging gold rings for their engagement. Birgitta and Hansi had two wedding ceremonies in 1961 (a civil ceremony in Sweden and a religious ceremony in Germany), but their happiness ultimately did not last. Although the two never divorced, they lived separately after 1990. He passed away in 2016.

Princess Désirée and Niclas Silfverschiöld announce their engagement (PA Images/Alamy)

Three years later, Birgitta’s younger sister, Princess Désirée, announced that she would marry a Swedish aristocrat, Baron Niclas Silfverschiöld. This picture is from their official engagement announcement, on December 19, 1963, but someone decided to place a (lovely) enormous floral arrangement right in front of them! However, you can see Niclas’s left hand, with a slim gold band on the ring finger, suggesting that they did indeed follow Swedish tradition. The couple married on June 5, 1964, and they celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in 2014.

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The king’s eldest sister, Princess Margaretha, announced her engagement to British businessman John Ambler on February 28, 1964. He followed British tradition rather than the Swedish one regarding engagement rings, acquiring a ring with a trio of diamonds for his bride-to-be.

Close-up of Princess Margaretha’s engagement ring (Wikimedia Commons)

Ambler purchased Margaretha’s engagement ring from Collingwood, a British jewelry firm. The couple married on June 30, 1964; they separated in 1996, but never divorced. Ambler died in 2008.

Heritage Image Partnership Ltd/Alamy

Princess Christina, the youngest of the Haga princesses, wore a small ring during the 1974 announcement of her engagement to Swedish businessman Tord Magnuson; a thin band is also visible on the left hand of her husband-to-be. The two married on June 15, 1974.

Keystone Press/Alamy

It was King Carl XVI Gustaf’s turn to announce his engagement two years later. In March 1976, he introduced his fiancée, German interpreter Silvia Sommerlath, to the press. Following tradition, the pair exchanged engagement rings—you can see that each of them is wearing a ring on the usual finger above. The king’s engagement ring is a plain gold band; he gave his wife-to-be a diamond ring. They married on June 19, 1976.

Close-up of Queen Silvia’s rings, 2012 (Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)

Queen Silvia still wears her engagement ring, but she stacks it with two other rings: her wedding band and a diamond and ruby ring.

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A few months after Carl Gustaf and Silvia married, the family celebrated another engagement. Prince Bertil announced that he would marry his longtime companion, Lilian Craig, on October 8, 1976. (Their marriage could not take place during the previous king’s reign, because he would not allow Bertil to marry a commoner without losing his title.) Bertil is not wearing an engagement ring during the announcement; information on what ring Lilian may have received specifically on their engagement is elusive, although she wore several jeweled rings on her ring finger through the years. The couple married on December 7, 1976. Bertil died in 1997, and Lilian passed away in 2013.

LEIF R JANSSON/AFP via Getty Images

Several decades went by before the next round of royal engagements in Sweden. Carl Gustaf and Silvia’s daughter, Crown Princess Victoria, announced her engagement to Swedish personal trainer and gym owner Daniel Westling on February 24, 2009.

Close-up of Victoria’s ring (Patrik Osterberg-Pool/Getty Images)

Daniel gave Victoria a white gold engagement ring with a brilliant-cut diamond solitaire. The couple married on June 19, 2010, and are now the parents of two children, Princess Estelle and Prince Oscar.

Patrik Osterberg/All Over Press Sweden/Getty Images

A few months after Victoria’s announcement, her younger sister, Princess Madeleine, officially announced her engagement to Swedish lawyer Jonas Bergström. Jonas presented Madeleine with a diamond engagement ring, but this marriage was not to be: after it was revealed that he had been unfaithful, the wedding was called off.

Ewa-Marie Rundquist/The Royal Court, Stockholm

The second time was a charm for Princess Madeleine, who announced on October 25, 2012, that she would marry Christopher O’Neill, a British-American financier. The engagement ring that she received from O’Neill was also a diamond ring.

Close-up of Madeleine’s ring (Ewa-Marie Rundquist/The Royal Court, Stockholm)

The couple married on June 8, 2013, and exactly a year later, their daughter, Princess Leonore, was christened. They have since welcomed two more children, Prince Nicolas and Princess Adrienne.

The Royal Court, Sweden

Victoria and Madeleine’s brother, Prince Carl Philip, announced on June 27, 2014, that he would marry Sofia Hellqvist, a model and reality television star. Sofia received a diamond ring from the prince as an engagement gift.

Close-up of Sofia’s ring (Erika Gerdemark/The Royal Court, Sweden)

Their royal wedding was held on June 13, 2015. The couple has two children, Prince Alexander and Prince Gabriel, and they are expecting a third in the spring of 2021.