HRH The Prince of Wales and Mrs. Camilla Parker Bowles
April 9, 2005

We’ve reached the finish line, kids: it’s our last hattery flashback post for the month!  Which also means that Crown Princess Victoria’s wedding is only three days away — hooray!!!

Our most recent crown princely wedding in Europe was also easily the most controversial: in 2005, Prince Charles married his longtime partner, Camilla Parker Bowles, with whom he had admitted committing adultery during his marriage to Diana, Princess of Wales.  Both parties were divorced (though Charles, in the wake of Diana’s death, was considered a widower), and so a religious wedding in the Church of England was impossible. 

However, it had become clear by 2005 that Camilla’s place in Charles’s life was non-negotiable, and so the Queen and the Archbishop of Canterbury decided that marriage was the best option.  The solution?  A civil wedding ceremony at the Guildhall in Windsor, followed by a Church of England blessing at St. George’s Chapel on the grounds of Windsor Castle.  There was one more unforeseen obstacle to overcome, however: the wedding had to be postponed by one day when Pope John Paul II died, and Charles had to represent the Queen at his funeral.

But on the day of the wedding itself, things went off largely without a hitch.  Camilla went from being Mrs. Parker Bowles to being HRH The Duchess of Cornwall (she doesn’t use the Princess of Wales title because of lingering associations with Diana).  All of Charles and Camilla’s children were present for the celebration, as were all of the senior royals — and Camilla’s ex-husband, too!  The two celebrated their fifth wedding anniversary this year.

(For those hoping this wedding hattery flashback might be about Charles and Diana’s wedding, never fear: I’m planning to do a flashback post about that event in the future!)

Wedding Hatters

Great Britain
Elizabeth · Camilla · Beatrice · Eugenie · Sophie · Anne · Zara
Serena · Sarah · Birgitte · Katharine · Alexandra · Marie-Christine

Foreign Royals
Anne-Marie · Mette-Marit · Laurentien

Since at least one of her sons was on the balcony, chatting with the Yorkie sisters, I thought it was strange that Lady Sarah Chatto didn’t show at this year’s TTC.  But then lovely reader Maggie sent me this photo:

… and it seems that Sarah was simply hiding!  (Come on out, Sarah — we’re never that mean in our hattery comments!)

From what I can see, this hat has a whiff of Queen Mum about it — and also a slight whiff of blah-neutrals (which is pretty typical for Lady Sarah.  Okay, maybe that one was a bit mean.)

Thanks to lovely readers Maggie and Eliza for sending in photos of this hat!

Serena Linley may be wearing the same hat she wore to Christmas Day services on Friday, but we’ve got a new hat from Lady Sarah, I believe.  I wish there were a better front view of it, but from the side, I think I like it.  Let’s face it, she’s a conservative lady — lots more like her Auntie Lilibet than her Mum — and this seems right in line with that.

I’ve been searching for a better picture of Lady Sarah Chatto at today’s Christmas service, but this is it so far, and unfortunately it’s one of those look around and squint royal photos.

You can just see Sarah over HM’s right shoulder (that’s Daniel Chatto over her left with one of their two sons).  I think Sarah might be wearing the same black beret that she wore to this year’s Trooping the Colour … what do the rest of you think?  It certainly looks like the same chapeau to me!

ETA: Here’s a better picture of Lady Sarah:

Yes, yes, I know that you’re all really looking at Columbus Taylor picking his nose (always good to see someone 27th in line to the British throne digging for gold in public, isn’t it?).  But please, try to avert your eyes and notice the matching berets of the Armstrong-Jones ladies, okay?

So, last summer, I fell all over myself praising Lady Sarah Chatto for the black beret she wore to Lady Rose Gilman’s wedding, and since then, she and pretty near every other female member of the royal family have been sporting them out and about.  This has got to stop, though, ladies — when you’re wearing exactly the same hat to exactly the same occasion, we have hattery issues (just ask Camilla and The Queen, ha!).

As of right now, I’m declaring a black-beret embargo, effective until October 2009.  I’m serious.  It’s summertime.  Get something made of straw, for goodness sake.

Following along with the trend, it’s a repeat hat for Lady Sarah Chatto today, too. It’s one I like very much, just as much as I did the first time at Rose Gilman’s wedding … but still, I hope these royal ladies aren’t conserving on hat-buying because they fear looking extravagant in our global economic fireworks explosion. Got to keep Treacy and the millinery brigade in business, after all…

If there was a Mad Hattery best-dressed list, Lady Sarah Chatto would be skyrocketing to the top today. How chic and fabulous does Princess Margaret’s daughter look? The black and white is crisp and smart, and the hat is just so retro cool. Top marks!

Ah, the famous “Glums” photo. The Linleys do look a bit melancholy, don’t they? Of course, if I were at the center of an unsavory photo blackmail dust-up, I’d probably be grumpy, too. Or maybe Serena’s just blue because it appears that her hair may have exploded out the side of her head?

It’s a peculiar fascinator, isn’t it? So monochrome, and so matchy-matchy with her own hair. It almost does look as if strands of her hair are teased out and wound around this feathery protrusion, but I doubt that’s actually what’s going on. Regardless, eh. Beige, beige, zzzzzzzz.

Lady Sarah, however, is looking smart as ever. Ice blue is a nice color for a dignified wedding guest, and her hat is traditional and yet still modern looking. Bravo!

I had to do a triple take when I saw this photo and really remind myself that Princess Margaret was already dead in 2005, because holy cow, how much does Sarah Chatto look like her mother here!

The hat’s typical Lady Sarah — neutral, sort of boring, but with clean lines.  She’s not really one for extravagance, and that really suits her quite well.