We've got a lot on our plates for the next week, hatters!  I'll be covering Daisy and Henrik's visit to Washington, D.C. (happening this week), as well as the big schedule of events for the weekend/next week:

• Saturday: Trooping the Colour!  First outing for the Duchess of Cambridge, the whole Windsor family on the balcony, etc.

•  Sunday: Service of Thanksgiving for Prince Philip's 90th birthday (today! -- hence the celebratory hats donned above.  Thanks to lovely reader Shannon for sending the photo) at Windsor.  The British royal family should be there en masse, and it's rumored that foreign royals will be attending the service as well.  Jackpot!

• Monday: Garter Day.  We may see some of the lingering foreign royals show up here as well -- and maybe William and Kate, too?  Probably Camilla, Sophie, and Birgitte Gloucester, as per usual.

•  Tuesday - Saturday: Royal Ascot.  HAT CHRISTMAS.  Need I say more?

So, bottom line is this -- I'm having panic attacks over the fact that the site is probably going to buckle and crash again, as we've been having increasing traffic loads even after the recent upgrade.  I'm still looking into more permanent solutions to this problem, but know this: it's likely that I'll be updating posts this weekend and next week over at the Annex.  If you haven't yet, mark your books!

(Also, if you haven't seen it yet, here's a treat: a new sister site for Mad Hattery!  The TiaraPedia has its own digs now!  Wallow in the blingy goodness.)

PHOTO CREDITS: PA/MSN

Whew!  About 36 hours after you slightly over-zealous hatters crashed the site under a massive traffic load, it's back up and running!  Hooray!

Hats from the Cambridge wedding have already been given the Mad Hattery treatment over at the back-up site, Mad Hattery Annex, but they will be moved over here sometime this weekend.  If you want to comment over there in the meantime, feel free; I'll leave those posts and link them to the ones I put here.

Finally, an announcement: because restoring the site involved upgrading its server, I'm going to run a little Mad Hattery pledge drive to hopefully help ease the cost of the upgrade.  If you're a reader here, whether you comment regularly or just lurk here, please consider donating a dollar to help keep the blog going!  If this site crash has taught me anything, it's that all of you love this place as much as I do, and I hope, with your help, that we can avoid any more brief catastrophes!

If you'd like to make a small donation to support the site, please click on the Paypal button below or in the sidebar.  Thanks, everybody!

ETA: You hatters are unbelievably generous -- you've already donated enough to cover the cost of the upgrade!  Thank you all so much!  Mad Hattery will definitely live to see another day.

Only a few more hours now, hatters!  The royal wedding starts at 11:00 AM in London (that's 6 AM in New York / 3 AM in Los Angeles for Yanks like me!).  Our Royal Wedding Live Post (squee!) will kick off here at:

7 AM London / 3 AM New York / 12 AM Los Angeles / 5 PM Sydney

... if I can wait that long to open it, ha!  Until then, if you're partying all night, head over to place your bets on the tiara, or browse through our wedding flashback posts!

To help us all keep track of the many, many royal faces who will be appearing at this wedding, I've put together a pictoral guest list for this wedding just like I did for Crown Princess Victoria's wedding last June.  Print out out and keep it by your side so that you can correctly identify all of the royals (and their hats!) as they appear on screen -- because you know the commentators aren't going to know who half these people are, LOL!

THE BRIDE AND GROOM

HRH Prince William of Wales and Miss Catherine Middleton

Click below for the rest of the guests!

Read the rest of this entry »

Only three months to go until the big royal wedding, hatters!  Are you getting excited yet?  (I know you are!)

If you still need a little hattery to help get you in the mood for a Westminster Abbey royal wedding, though, you've come to the right place on the right day: today I'm posting the first installment of Hattery Flashbacks from the Abbey!  For the next three months, I'll be posting hattery from the most recent royal weddings held at the Abbey -- here's the schedule:

January 29: Elizabeth & Philip / Margaret & Tony
February 28: Alexandra & Angus / Anne & Mark
March 29: Andrew & Sarah

The first two flashbacks are posted below!  So, put on your best wedding chapeaux, hatters -- it's time for some flashback fun!

PHOTO CREDITS: BEN STANSALL/AFP/Getty Images

Happy holidays, hatters!  Hope you're all having a festive December -- how about a few Hattery News tidbits to put the jingle in your bells?  I was inspired by the annual gifting event held by the Monegasque royals, pictured above -- though I'm deeply disappointed that none of them decided to wear a Santa hat this year...

-- Looking for a hatter-ific holiday gift, for your favorite hattery enthusiast (even if that person is you)?  Check out the new Mad Hattery! Shop, featuring our first hattery design, "Keep Calm and Wear a Tiara"!  If you can't wear real royal bling, why not sport your tiara love on a shirt, bag, or mousepad?  I'm planning on including new designs every now and then, including a limited edition custom Mad Hattery royal wedding design -- keep your peepers open!  (Proceeds from the store will help to go toward defraying the costs of hosting the site.)

-- I'm working on the Maddest Hatters of 2010 review post as you read this, and I thought I'd open the floor to some of your nominations this year.  Want to suggest a hat for the list?  E-mail me the link to the blog post, along with the category of your invention.  Hats worn from January 1 - December 31, 2010 qualify!  (Here's a link to last year's post to refresh your memory.)

-- There's been an explosion of royal discussion over at Royalty with Ella Kay.  Want to read my weekly royal column, or join in the royal commenting?  Head over here!  (We've been discussing the William/Kate engagement pictures this week.)

-- And, finally, thanks to all of the lovely readers who wished me a happy birthday over at my Facebook page last week! My horrifying birthday discovery of the year?  I share a birthday with my snake-wielding royal nemesis, Prince Carl Philip's girlfriend.  You picked the wrong December 6th birthday girl, CP!  Sigh...

PHOTO CREDITS: Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images

Look out, hatters -- we're on the radar now.  The AFP's Claire Rosemberg wrote a profile of Belgian milliner Christophe Coppens that's out today, and it turns out I'm (sort of) quoted in it:

Perhaps not surprisingly, royal-watching hat-fanatics puzzle at times on the Internet over headpieces outed by Queen Paola and daughters-in-law Princess Mathilde and Princess Claire - though Coppens is not their sole source.

"These strangely moulded hats are becoming a thing," said someone on madhattery.royalroundup.com. "I mean the hats are interesting and all, but something about the shape reminds me of those crazy hooded dinosaurs from Jurassic Park."

What a weird way to be quoted, huh?  The "someone" in this sentence is me -- my name's even on the blog post, not to mention all over the blog itself!  And the quote doesn't even refer to one of Queen Paola's hats -- it's the hat that Queen Sonja wore in April to the reopening of Oslo Cathedral.  The hat may be a Coppens creation -- it's that same dinosaur madness that the Belgian queen's worn a few times -- but Claire Rosemberg, come on, the queens don't look that much alike, and I do have a name!

In the meantime, I'm thinking of changing my display name here to "someone" -- you'll all remember who I am, right?  LOL!

But the clear thing to take away, hatters, is this: you've clearly helped make this the go-to destination for reporters looking to research the zany world of royal hats!

(Here's a link to the AFP article as it appears on the Vancouver Sun website.)

Well, hatters, our dear Prince William has finally done it -- Kate Middleton's officially a royal-in-training!  Clarence House announced their engagement this morning!

Live BBC News feed about announcement!

Hooray, a new royal hatter!  Congratulations to both of them.  I've been waiting a while for this one.

And, on that note, I have to go to work, LOL.  More later this evening if possible.  Man, why don't they announce royal weddings on a Saturday, hm?

ETA: I'm back!  I've added the photo at the top of the post, and here's one of the famous ring:

And YouTube links to the engagement press conference and the first interview of the couple!

(P.S., hatters: looks like I'm going to be on the BBC Radio 5 Breakfast Show in the morning -- tune in for more wedding talk!)

Newspapers are reporting today that there's a new Spanish sparkler waiting in the wings: Prince Felipe has given Princess Letizia a new tiara!

The tiara, which LibertaDigital.com says is valued at more than 50,000 euros, was a gift for their fifth wedding anniversary on May 24, 2009.  It was apparently supposed to make its debut at the Swedish royal wedding in June, but Felipe and Letizia reportedly didn't want to flaunt an expensive new piece of jewelry at a time when the Spanish economy was in crisis.  Perhaps that helps explain the tiara swapping the Spanish ladies did in Stockholm?

The tiara is described as being composed of diamonds and ten pearls.  It was made by Ansorena, a jewelry house based in Madrid, and Felipe helped design it.

Cross your fingers for a state visit in Spain soon, hatters -- I can't wait to see this sparkler!

PHOTO CREDITS: Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images

We're getting close, ladies and gents -- just about T-minus two days until Prince Nikolaos and Tatiana Blatnik get hitched in Greece!  The church where they will marry in Spetses is pictured above ... very picturesque, non?

In the meantime, we've got some new details on the wedding itself.  The ceremony will reportedly begin at 7:30 PM local time on Wednesday, which translates to 12:30 PM Eastern Time in the US and 5:30 PM in the UK.  A lunchtime wedding for the US and an early dinnertime wedding for the Brits -- how lovely!

However, since this is the wedding of a member of a non-reigning royal family, we won't be getting the kind of video coverage we got for Daniel and Victoria's wedding -- we'll mostly be relying on photos, unless news of a streaming video option crops up (so far, no go there).  Even so, I'll be opening a Royal Wedding Live Post on Wednesday so we can all chat about the attire of the guests -- hopefully hats, but with an evening wedding, we can't be sure.  (And I very very very much doubt tiaras will be in order, except for the bride.)

But there will definitely be royal guests!  Here's who's supposed to be attending so far:

Denmark: Queen Margrethe, Crown Princess Mary, Prince Joachim, and Princess Marie
Greece: King Constantine, Queen Anne-Marie, Princess Alexia (and family), Crown Prince Pavlos (and family), Prince Nikolaos (we hope!), Princess Theodora, Prince Philippos, and Princess Irene
Jordan: Queen Noor (not sure if this has been confirmed)
Spain: Queen Sofia, Prince Felipe, Princess Letizia, Infanta Elena, Infanta Cristina, and Iñaki Urdangarin
Sweden: Crown Princess Victoria, Prince Daniel, Prince Carl Philip, and Princess Madeleine

PHOTO CREDITS: PPE

Attention all hatters in the Greater London area: there's an exhibit at Buck House this summer that absolutely cannot be missed!

Check it out -- it's a display of HM's Ascot hattery!  It's like a numbered, centralized version of the Mad Hattery! archives.  Here's a fun game -- identify which year we've seen each hat on HM at the races!  (I identify five here that we've seen on the blog...)

The exhibit, which also features some of HM's beautiful gowns and Prince Phil's naval uniform, opens up on Tuesday.  Unfortunately, I'm too far away to make this particular pilgrimage -- but if any of you hatters make it over there, be sure to give us a full report on how these toppers look up close!

Photo Credits: BEN STANSALL/AFP/Getty Images