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Sparkling Royal Jewels From Around the World

Royal Jewel Rewind: The Greek Crown Princely Wedding (1995)

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Twenty years ago today, Crown Prince Pavlos of Greece married British-born heiress Marie-Chantal Miller in a Greek Orthodox ceremony at St. Sophia’s Cathedral in London. Two decades and five children later, the pair are still happily married. Let’s have a look at the jewels worn on their wedding day — especially those donned by the bride.

Marie-Chantal’s diamond and pearl bridal tiara was a loaner from her new mother-in-law, Queen Anne-Marie of Greece. The tiara, which is known as the Antique Corsage Tiara, was Anne-Marie’s eighteenth birthday gift from her parents, King Frederik IX and Queen Ingrid of Denmark.

As you may have guessed from its name, the tiara was made by repurposing a corsage ornament (or stomacher) that belonged to Queen Victoria of Sweden, who was Queen Ingrid’s grandmother. The tiara was also later worn as a wedding tiara by Tatiana Blatnik, who married Pavlos’s brother, Prince Nikolaos.

Marie-Chantal also wore small diamond earrings with her wedding ensemble.

The new princess paired her wedding jewelry with a gown by Valentino.

For whatever reason, there are very few photographs of the wedding guests available for me to include here. But we do have a good snap of three of the most important royal ladies at the wedding: Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, Grand Duchess Josephine-Charlotte of Luxembourg, and Queen Silvia of Sweden. All wore pearls; Queen Silvia appears to be wearing the two-stranded pearl necklace that belonged to Princess Sibylla, while Queen Elizabeth is wearing the Kensington Bow Brooch that belonged to Queen Mary.

Luckily for us, the wedding ceremony is available to watch on YouTube. What other royal jewels can you spot on the guests? (Also, for fun: can you name all of the crown bearers?)

More Tiaras from the Swedish Royal Wedding

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Good news, everyone: you don’t have to be royal to wear a tiara. In fact, tiaras have always been accessible to everybody — as long as you have the money to buy one and a place to wear it. Plenty of non-royal guests sported tiaras at Prince Carl Philip and Princess Sofia of Sweden’s recent wedding. Here’s a look at some of the diadems on display.

The women wearing black gowns with distinctive black and white sleeves are royal courtiers — ladies-in-waiting and other members of the royal household. Many of the courtiers were also wearing tiaras

I believe the woman on the left is the head of the Queen’s household, Kirstine von Blixen-Finecke

A delicate tiara of diamond daisies

An intriguing bandeau

A low-profile, modern diamond fringe 

Carl Philip and Sofia’s Wedding: Pre-Wedding Dinner

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Hi, everybody! I’m slowly but surely getting caught up again here — in fact, as you read this, I’m probably somewhere over the Atlantic — but here’s the first of our catch-up posts on this weekend’s royal wedding!

Prince Carl Philip and Sofia Hellqvist celebrated on the night before their wedding with a pre-wedding dinner aboard a boat in Stockholm. Let’s have a look at the jewels, shall we?

The bride mostly let her blue gown do the sparkling, wearing very little jewelry.

You can catch a glimpse of her small hoop earrings above.

The groom’s mother, Queen Silvia of Sweden, shocked the internet by wearing trousers.

She paired the emerald-green jacket and trousers with gold jewelry.

Like Sofia, Crown Princess Victoria mostly kept the sparkle confined to her gorgeous dress.

However, Victoria did wear small earrings and a glittering pendant necklace.

Princess Madeleine wore sparkling earrings with her gown.

The king’s eldest sister, Princess Margaretha, wore a multi-stranded necklace and a large pair of stud earrings with her blue gown.

Princess Birgitta, the king’s second sister, was dripping in diamonds, from floral earrings to a cross pendant to bracelets and rings. (Sidenote: yes, this is what Birgitta looks like. There’s no need to dwell on it. Restrict your comments to her jewels, not her appearance.)

Birgitta’s daughter, Princess Desiree of Hohenzollern, wore a sparkling necklace of her own.

Vicky Magnuson, daughter-in-law of Princess Christina, chose dramatic drop earrings for the dinner.

Crown Princess Mette-Marit of Norway also wore a lovely pair of drop earrings with her floral gown.

Princess Martha Louise of Norway wore a dramatic pair of earrings, and her husband, Ari Behn, wore a rather dramatic sash of his own.

Princess Ursula of Bavaria wore a lovely strand of pearls, plus extremely dramatic drop earrings.