Either the Yorks forgot they were going to Fergie’s little sister’s wedding and not a fancy dress party, or they’re actually planning on starting some sort of Girls Aloud-style girl group:

Let’s see here … Bea’s wearing her Trooping the Colour ’10 plant sprouter; Eugenie’s sporting some foliage in her favorite color, hot pink; and Sarah’s wearing (among other things) a fascinator that looks suspiciously like the one Bea wore to Charles and Camilla’s wedding.

Just … may I have a word, Sarah?  You are fifty years old.  That’s 50, not 20 or 30 or even 40.  You look like you’re trying to be 23 again, and it’s just no good.  Now, I know you’ve had issues with decision making in the past, but for the love of God, get something age appropriate and stop sneaking into your daughter’s closets!  It just makes you look older and sadder, not younger and more vibrant.  Say it with me: elegant and chic!

I mean, even Eugenie and Beatrice look terrified in this picture.  I’m going to assume it’s because someone just popped up a mirror.  Oy vey.

PHOTO CREDITS: Craig Hibbert/Mail Online

Okay, it may just be that I’m thoroughly infected with the happy wedding spirit, but even though this is clearly a beige forehead monster, I like it!  In fact, I may love it!  It looks great in Beatrice’s hair, the curliques on the hat echo the curls in her hair, and it sets off nicely against her white/cream outfit.  I know.  I know.  I’ll see my hat therapist right away on Monday morning!

And doesn’t she look pleased as punch to be presenting a trophy?  Is this maybe the first time she’s done that?

Looks like Princess Bea bogarted Serena Linley’s Christmas spirograph forehead-monster for Ascot — though this one does seem to obstruct the line of vision a bit less.  I just hope she can see the horses!  (Also, the navy and gold colors are just wonderful on Beatrice, but, from this angle, it looks a bit like a home-ec project, unfortunately.)

But — oh, no — a Royal Ascot fashion blunder!

Racegoer Lisa Butcher showed up in a spirograph hat, too!  Oh, well — I think the wallpaper pattern on this second one is blah, so Bea wins the day.

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

Eugenie may have been toeing the line of fashionable and normal this year at TTC, but leave it to our maddest of hatters, Princess Bea, to show up in true Yorkie hattery spirit!

I do think it’s mean, though, that no one helped her trim back the plant growing out of her head before the parade.  I mean, it was clearly impeding her vision during the fly past:

At first, you might have thought that Eug and Wills were trying to decide whether or not there were two airplanes flying overhead, but clearly they’re actually having an argument about who was supposed to take scissors to Bea’s floral protrusion.  “I thought you were going to do it!” … “No, I thought it was your turn to prune Bea!”

(Sidenote: how adorable are Princess Margaret’s little grandsons in their little suits?  So cute!)

It’s a revelation, you guys — our Maddest of Hatters has discovered a new use for hattery: helping you remember your own name!

Just kidding, of course — our Yorkie Bea hasn’t forgotten her name, she’s just wearing the uniform her “Caterpillar Run” team chose for this year’s London Marathon.  The royal runner and her posse, which included (Virgin bigwig) Richard Branson’s children, Holly and Sam, and, of course, (Virgin-employed) Smiley Boyfriend Dave, ran the (Virgin-sponsored) marathon today for charity, all in matching hattery.

Even Smiley Boyfriend Dave donned a chartreuse chapeau for the marathon, though I have to say, the fact that his name is in all caps on his hat has been cracking me up since I first saw this picture:

I hereby declare that, from now on, he shall be known on Mad Hattery! as Smiley Boyfriend DAVE.

And both Bea and DAVE were so focused on the marathon that they even kept smiling when a crazy butterfly man with huge wings stopped by to try to carry them away to some mythical land!

Branson-attack averted, Bea and the gang went on to finish the marathon, and the senior Yorkies were there to greet and congratulate her:

Looks like Duchess of York hugs make even the most painful post-marathon body feel better.  And you have to admire that Beatrice went for the double headband-ball cap hattery feat here!

All in a day’s work for our Maddest of Hatters, I’m sure.  All in a day’s work.

Another Yorkie, another repeated hat.  We saw Bea in this little topper at the unveiling of the statue of the Queen Mum on the Mall back in February of last year, but this appearance gives us a much better view of it.

I quite like it … it fits with Bea’s recent pattern of wearing chic, ladylike hats to royal events.  If I could change one thing, I’d dispense with the feathery thingys that are sprouting out of it, but other than that, good show!

The Queen of Buggy Hats has done it again, kids!  Princess Beatrice, who is a part of a team running the London Marathon to raise money for charity, has moved from butterfly chapeaux to caterpillar baseball caps.  Hm.  I blame Smiley Boyfriend Dave…

(It’s all for a good cause, of course.  You can read more on Bea’s marathon team over here.)

More skiing royals in Switzerland — this time, it’s Yorkies!  The entire York family, including Sarah Ferguson and Bea’s boyfriend Dave — the smiliest royal boyfriend around — packed up and trucked on over to Verbier to celebrate Prince Andrew’s big 5-0 birthday.

Here we’ve got Bea, sans Smiley Boyfriend Dave for the moment, getting ready for some serious slope action.  Love the all-black — very ski chic.  One suggestion though … how about letting your ponytail peek out from under the helmet, Your Royal Highness?  I think a flash of red hair would look really nifty while you swoosh down the mountain!

Just like her Aunt Anne, Beatrice also seems to have chosen a repeat hat from last Christmas to wear for this second outing in Sandringham to St. Mary Magdalen.  It’s a good repeat hat, too.  I think our Maddest Hatter might be turning into quite the classy chapeau-wearer!