It’s a sister act in Denmark today!  Princess Benedikte and Queen Anne-Marie teamed up to reopen the Queen Anne-Marie Center for the Elderly, a nursing facility in Copenhagen.  I love seeing them together!

So: hats!  I love the shape of Anne-Marie’s topper, but I don’t understand the black-and-white hat band (it’s almost zebra print, really) with the plaid jacket.  Our dear Ben’s got on a hat very similar to a fabulous one that CP Mary wore on last year’s state visit to Vietnam — but I don’t really love it as is.  Maybe in a deeper color (a plum/magenta like the suit?) and without the bow?

Good hats or not, it’s really nice to see Anne-Marie back in her birth country.  I’ve often wondered: why didn’t the Greeks relocate to Denmark after they were forced into exile?  Constantine is of Danish descent just like his wife.  Thoughts?

PHOTO CREDITS: Colourpress/Profimedia

HRH The Crown Princess of Sweden and Mr. Daniel Westling
June 19, 2010

Well, kids, yesterday we partied hardy in the wedding live posts, and today we get to have a tiara fiesta!  I’ve compiled all of the tiara entries for the royal guests at Crown Princess Victoria’s wedding to Daniel Westling (now Prince Daniel) in this entry.

The wedding, of course, took place in Stockholm yesterday.  The couple has been together since 2002, when Daniel became Victoria’s personal trainer.  Love blossomed, and on their wedding day, Daniel became royal.  During their balcony appearance, Victoria thanked the people of Sweden for giving her a prince.

And now, we’ll all just have to wait to see how long it takes before the pitter-patter of little royal feet are heard in Haga Palace!

Wedding Hatters

Princess Ben was looking her usual fierce royal self at Vic’s wedding, recycling the dress she wore to a recent banquet dinner and topping it off with the magnificent SWB Fringe Tiara.  Parfait!

Here’s a better look at Benedikte’s recycled dress…

Read the rest of this entry »

HRH The Crown Prince of Denmark and Miss Mary Donaldson
May 14, 2004

Our last major tiara wedding before Crown Princess Vic’s big day was the wedding of Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark and Tasmanian-born Mary Elizabeth Donaldson.  The two met during the Sydney Olympics in 2000, fell in love, and got hitched four years later.

Frederik and his Aussie bride have two children: Prince Christian (who will one day be king) and Princess Isabella, the first Danish princess born in a generation.  Mary has transformed from an everyday girl to a glamorous crown princess, and this wedding was definitely high on the glamour factor as well: we’ve got more than thirty tiaras on parade here, many of which are brand-new to the blog.  A good trial run for Victoria’s wedding, no doubt!  Enjoy!

Wedding Hatters

HRH The Crown Prince of Norway and Miss Mette-Marit Tjessem Høiby
August 25, 2001

Welcome to the hattery coverage of our second crown princely wedding in preparation for Crown Princess Victoria’s big day!  Like Victoria’s wedding will be, this wedding was a tiara affair, and the royal ladies of Europe brought out some of their blingiest bling for the occasion.

Haakon’s choice of Mette-Marit was a controversial one.  Not only was she a commoner, she also had a son, Marius, from a previous relationship and had been heavily involved in the drug-and-alcohol fueled party scene in Oslo.  Many thought she was not suited to become the next queen of Norway, but Haakon stood firm.  Mette-Marit publicly apologized for her wild past at a press conference before the wedding, and the two have been happily married now for nearly a decade.  Along with Marius, the crown prince and princess have two children, Princess Ingrid Alexandra (who will one day be Norway’s queen) and Prince Sverre Magnus.

Wedding Hatters

Hold up just a second, hatters … we need to give the Danish Royal Scooby Gang here a chance to firm up their plans on how they’re going to greet the Russian president…

Okay, I think they’re prepared now.  Next up on the hattery list: the lovely Princess Benedikte!

Or, as the Getty caption people named her, the lovely “unidentified woman”!  (Reason #341422 that we need a mad hatter working with the international press corps.  Seriously.)

At least we know who dear Ben is, and I’d wager that probably most of you who read the blog regularly would have been able to guess her identity based on the straw hat alone!  It’s a straw hat we’ve seen recently also, I believe; I’m pretty sure this is the same one she wore to Margrethe’s birthday luncheon. 

The hat still reminds me of what my mother wears when she goes to the beach, but somehow, on Benedikte, it works!

The quality of some of the pictures from this evening’s dinner is a little sketchy — I guess because it’s essentially a private dinner?  Anyway, we’ve got Princess Benedikte here repeated the tiara she wore to the theater last night: the Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleberg Fringe Tiara.  I guess sometimes it probably is tough to pack more than one precious diadem for a weekend trip…

Update: Here’s a better picture of Benedikte and the SWB Fringe:

It’s a bit of a “hide and seek” sort of photo, but here’s Princess Benedikte on the left at her big sister’s birthday luncheon, wearing a very Benedikte-type hat.  I checked the MH archives, and I don’t think we’ve seen this exact straw hat with ribbon band from Benedikte, but it certainly resembles many others we’ve seen from Princess B!  It’s sort of a trademark, really — traditional, conservative, and ultimately pretty much okay.

Hatters, if you can believe it, the universe is conspiring against us in our quest for Tiara Alerts today!  The birthday gala for Queen Margrethe was held tonight at the Danish Royal Theatre, but the guest list was quite truncated for a really weird reason: a volcano erupted in Iceland, creating a giant ash cloud that has blanketed northern Europe and closed airports all over. 

Some of the royals on their way to the bash — like the Dutch royals and the Swedish king and queen — got stuck on their way to Copenhagen and missed tonight’s event as a result.  But, we’re in luck: we still have lots of royals in sparkly tiaras to celebrate Margrethe’s big 7-0!

First up: Princess Benedikte…

… and, for the second time in a week, she’s worn a tiara brand-new to the blog!  Now that’s what I call hattery commitment!

This little beauty is the Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleberg Fringe Tiara, which belongs to the princely family that Benedikte married into (the three Danish sisters did quite well for themselves — one’s a queen, one’s a [deposed] queen consort, and the other’s a princess.  Not too shabby!).  Nothing like a beautiful diamond fringe tiara to show everyone that you’re as regal as can be, volcanoes and ash clouds be damned!

Princess Benedikte, bless, her, is the only Danish royal lady who really brought the big guns to this Tiara Alert situation … she busted out a sparkler we’ve never seen on the blog.  Hooray!

It’s a little tough to see in this photo, but I believe this is what I’ll call Benedikte’s Floral Birthday Tiara, which she received as a gift on her 18th birthday from her parents, King Frederik IX and Queen Ingrid.  Apparently the tiara is created partially from a brooch that was originally owned by Benedikte’s grandmother, Queen Alexandrine, consort of King Christian X of Denmark.  Lovely!