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

Another great hattery outing for Princess Alexandra!  She’s really embracing her inner glamorous royal here rather than her inner mumsy gran, and I love it.  This silvery hat is just wonderful — it has just enough embellishment to be interesting.  Bravo!

Hey, everybody, it’s a carriage full of Kents!  While the duke is giving us some sort of strange senior picture pose, I’m happy to see Princess Alex back in top form.  That’s the regal daughter of a British prince and a Greek princess!

Thanks to lovely reader Maggie for sending in the photo!

Oh, Alex, darling, not this dress/hat combo again!  I think the Kents should all be forced to play a mandatory game of WWPMD — that’s “What Would Princess Marina Do?” of course — before going outdoors in a hat or a frock.  I already know what Marina’s answer would be to this one: she wouldn’t!

The hat on its own isn’t bad, but the lovely and regal Alexandra needs a more elegant dress to pair with it.  She is one of the bluest blue-bloods in the whole bunch, after all!

The always-regal Princess Alexandra was in Edinburgh today to meet soldiers from one of her regiments, 3rd Battalion The Rifles, who have recently returned from Afghanistan.

Love Alexandra and generally love her hat choices, but I’m wondering why she decided she needed to wrap this one up — was she afraid it would be damaged when she got out of the car or something?

Unfortunately, this was the clearest picture I could find of Princess Alexandra opening the new Teddington Health and Social Care Centre.  But what I can see here, I’m not a big fan of.  Why all the stuff all over the place?  This looks like an Easter Basket gone wild.  Oh, dear.

It’s a small picture, sadly, but it’s Princess Alexandra, one of the best hatters there is!  If only she got as much attention from press agencies as she does from me on this blog.  She even showed up at her nephew Freddie’s wedding last weekend, but the only available photo shows a teensy-tiny picture of her in the back of a car.  I couldn’t even tell what her hat looked like.  It was tragic.

But at least we have her here, visiting a railroad company in Cumbria.  She looks elegant as usual, though if I were in charge, I might suggest a hat that’s just a little bit smaller.  This one’s not bad at all, but it’s verging on exaggerated.  (And more netting — there must have been a surplus of that millenary material this season!)

Newsflash: Princess Alexandra wore a hat, and I don’t like it!

Well, let me qualify that: the hat itself isn’t dreadful — it’s the combination of the hat and dress.  I mean, when you’re wearing a brightly-colored paisley silk dress, maybe you should choose a hat that is not embellished with ribbon, netting, and one of those godawful fake roses?  (*shakes fist at fake roses*)

I’m just flummoxed — I always like Princess Alexandra’s hats, and it just feels wrong to dislike one so much.  Ah, well, I guess everyone has their mad hattery moments.

Whew!  I really didn’t think this post title was going to fit in the subject line.  Alexandra, your title is long, honey!

I love both of the hats, especially Alexandra’s.  She’s my new favorite royal, honest to goodness.  How withering is her gaze in this photo?  I love it!  Princess Marina trained her up well.

Should Prince William ever get on his horse and actually propose to Miss Middleton, I think they should hire Alexandra as a princess tutor to teach Kate how to wear polka-dot brimmed hats elegantly and give a sharp eye when necessary to keep those unruly courtiers in order.

Even though her official title takes approximately 5 billion years to type, I have to say that I just adore Princess Alexandra.  She is so regal — such a throwback to people like Queen Mary and Queen Alexandra.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen her put a foot wrong, fashion or otherwise, so though she’s on the blog, it’s certainly not because her hattery is particularly mad.

In fact, I adore this hat almost as much as I adore Alexandra herself.  The pearl gray is elegant, and even though it is loaded with embellishments — a big bow and some serious netting — they don’t look overwhelming or out of place.  A+, your royal highness!