At first, I thought the mother of the groom at this royal wedding had gone rogue and decided not to wear a hat at all. Interesting statement, and it wouldn't surprise me; Princess Anne is awfully good at breaking the mold when it comes to the world of princessing. But then I realized that that white smudge sticking out of the bottom of her hair is, indeed, a feather.

Yes, it's clearer in the official photo, she's stuck random feathers in the back of her hair. I almost wish she'd gone hatless instead.

Another of the many crane your head and peek around and squint photos from the steps of St. George's Chapel. Dr. Claire Booth, wife of the Earl of Ulster and daughter-in-law of the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester, is on the far right hand side in the back row of this picture. She's standing behind her brother-in-law, Gary Lewis.

From what I can see, Claire's looking quite lovely. I like the color of her dress and the contrast with the black coat. It looks like she's gone with her usual stand-by for the hat, unfortunately -- a bunch of feathers sticking out of her hair -- less even than a substantial fascinator. They do appear to be aqua feathers, which at least earns her some unexpected points.

Lady Davina Lewis is one of the more fascinating junior members of the Windsor clan. The elder of the two daughters of the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester, Davina has a degree in media studies and is married to Gary Lewis, a  super hunky Maori carpenter from New Zealand.

And you can just baaaaarely see her in this picture. I'd like to kick the photographers who shot this wedding; they did a really poor job of zooming in on all the various and sundry royals in attendance. Mostly there were just pictures of Harry, Camilla, Beatrice (of course, you couldn't miss her), and the bride (fair enough). (And don't get me started on the Hello! photo spread -- AKA, Kate and Chelsy Crash a Royal Wedding.)

Davina is the woman in the bright blue coat, standing beside her husband. Her hat's tough to see, but it appears to be silver or gray, with a flat top piece attached to a modified beret or skull-cap base.

From what I can see, it's not bad. Hmph. Six million pictures of the butterflies, and everyone else gets the shaft.

The Countess of Wessex played coy with the photographers at the Phillips nuptials; she's in the corner of the official pictures, and not at all on the stairs of St. George's with the rest of the family post-wedding. In fact, this is the clearest picture I've been able to find of her, period. She's riding either to or from the ceremony with her little-seen daughter, Lady Louise, in the car beside her.

And you can just barely make out the hat, but that's okay, because Sophie's a frequent hat-cycler, and she wore the same one to Royal Ascot this June. And boy, is it a humdinger:

Looks like she went crazy and switched sides of the head with this one. Read my verdict on the ridiculousness of it all in the Ascot post. I'm too frightened to talk about it again...

And now, for the star of the show: the beautiful, blushing bride!

Also, Tiara Alert!

Autumn's not only got a lovely, lacy wedding dress and a handsome new husband, she's also got a loaned tiara from her new mother-in-law, Princess Anne:

This is the Festoon Diamond Tiara, gifted to Princess Anne by the World Wide Shipping Group in 1973, the year she married Peter Phillips's father, Captain Mark Phillips. You can find pictures of Anne wearing the Festoon tiara here at the Royal Forums. The Festoon isn't the tiara that Anne wore on her own wedding day, however; that was Queen Mary's Fringe Tiara, also worn by then-Princess Elizabeth when she married Prince Philip in 1947. It is owned by the crown, and was loaned to Anne for her wedding.

HM looked as pleased as punch at her eldest (and favorite, of course) grandson's wedding, didn't she? No doubt she was tickled by the choice of a pretty, scandal-free Canadian lady as the newest Windsor family member. And it seems she was feeling so whimsical and fancy-free about the whole event that she decided to rifle through the Yorkies' hat collection for this little number.

It's just ... such a young look. Not that Lillibet isn't young at heart, because we've all heard about the iPod and the Wii, but I've moaned and groaned before about Camilla wearing fluffy, frilly fascinators like this before, and I feel like the same goes for HM. It's not that it's ugly, and it's not that it looks bad, it's just less regal than I hope for every time the queen goes hatting about.

But still, she was so smiley in these pictures that I'll give her a pass. Maybe just think about something a bit less craft-fair next time, Liz.

As far as Camilla's feathered headpieces go, this one's neither my favorite or my least -- those honors go to her wedding headpiece (that fabulous gold feathered ornament) and the feathered monstrosity she wore to Trooping the Colour shortly after this wedding.

This one's a nice color -- blue looks good on the duchess, I think -- and it's not overwhelmingly fluffy. Average, but not bad -- quite a good grade for a Camilla hat, really! (Also, look how intrigued Harry is with the whole business!)

Well, this is a jaunty little number, isn't it? As far as these little saucer-shaped fascinators go, this one's quite nice. It's not perched down over her face, and it looks cute with her flippy hair. If the bow/wings were a bit larger, she'd be dangerously close to flying-nun territory, but as it is, it's just cute and architectural. Good work, Eugenie!

Okay, this one is a bit of a challenge: look past the big bunch of butterflies to the blonde in grey: that's Lady Gabriella Windsor, daughter of Prince and Princess Michael of Kent. Really, almost any sort of hat would look normal paired with Bea's Big Experiment, but I quite like this one. The silver is elegant, the feathers and flowers have been kept to a minimum, and the size is just right. It does look like it might be causing her blinking problems in the right ocular area, but other than that, bravo!

All hail the master: the maddest of all mad hatters, Princess Beatrice of York!

To be quite honest, this very hat was the single inspiration for this fabulous and informative blog. I tried to explain what she was wearing to some fellow American friends, and the conversation went something like this:

Ella: Look at this absolutely insane hat!
American friends: That's not a hat.
Ella: No, it is. That's Princess Beatrice, and that's the hat she chose to wear to her cousin's wedding.
American friends: Hats sit on top of a person's head. That's just a butterfly sculpture perched on top of her hair.
Ella: That counts as a hat. It's called a fascinator.
American friends: ...?

And lo, I decided it was time to start a blog to explain the wild and wacky world of British royal millinery to the masses. Yes, it's a hat; yes, it's ridiculous; yes, I love it as much as you do.

I do applaud Harry for managing to keep his eyes averted, however. Glancing over at his fellow-ginger cousin might cause retinal damage. He'd be seeing butterflies for weeks.