Only four Windsors showed up at today's big bash in Potsdam: Lord and Lady Nicholas and their adorable blond little boys, Albert and Leopold.  Nicholas and the groom are actually distant cousins: Georg Friedrich's great-great-great grandmother was Princess Vicky, the eldest daughter of Queen Victoria and later the Empress of Germany.  (And, of course, there are the copious other German connections that the Windsors have, so, yeah.)

Anyway: Paola is wearing the same purple fascinator she wore to Wills 'n Kate's big extravaganza in April, but for some inexplicable reason, today she decided to pair it with a mock turtleneck that she bought on the clearance rack at Kohl's.  I can only hope that there was a much more fabulous blouse in her suitcase, ready to be worn to the wedding, but one of her sons colored on it with markers.  It's the only possible answer.

PHOTO CREDITS: Andreas Rentz/Getty Images

Eh.  Boring.  Paola, I expected a run for the crazy stakes from you today, but no go.

PHOTO CREDITS: Isopix

Thanks to all the lovely hatters who sent this along -- it's Birgitte!  I could have sworn I remembered seeing Birgitte in this slightly-unflattering blue pillbox before, but for some reason, I can't find it anywhere!  Help!  Is this hat overload?

Regardless: I've decided that I wish there was an "everybody has to buy a new hat" requirement for balcony admittance on Trooping the Colour day..

Also here: Lady Nicholas, wearing a bucket, and Julia Ogilvy, wearing the same hat she wore to William and Kate's wedding.  But more importantly: Gary Lewis.  Oooh.

PHOTO CREDITS: Belga

On first glance, it may look like the Earl of St Andrews is wearing a purple fascinator -- but no, that's his sister-in-law, Paola, donning the purple feathers.

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Ka-boom! Oh, man, don't you just hate it when your hat explodes into a tangled mess of cabbage flowers, feather dusters, and horsehair?  Really gives you a bad hair day.  Oh, Paola...

PHOTO CREDITS: Indigo/Getty Images

Here's a royal we don't see very often: Lady Nicholas Windsor, daughter-in-law of the Duke and Duchess of Kent.  She's usually a bit more flamboyant than this in the hattery department -- see last year's Ascot cabbage flower as a typical example.  Overall, the hat's okay, I suppose -- but it's sort of giving her that Queen-Margrethe bald look, isn't it?

Thanks to lovely reader Long for sending in this photo!

Thanks so much to lovely reader BrianD, who tracked down a photo of Lady Nicholas Windsor at TTC!  Paola is the lady all the way on the left in the dark coat, standing beside Tim Laurence.

... so, is it just me, or is she wearing some sort of conch shell on her head???

Happy New Year, Mad Hatters!  While I'm sure you're all quite busy enjoying the bubbly and kissing your sweethearts at midnight, I thought a little hattery fun might be in order tonight as well.

(Well, this is Mad Hattery -- I'm sure you're all actually lounging on cruise ships in your Sunday best, wearing construction helmets and sipping champers just like Queen Silvia up there.  You are, aren't you?  I knew it!)

Anyway: everyone's doing year-in-review posts right now (heck, I just did two: The Top Ten British Royal Events of the Decade and 2009's Royal Romance Review -- check 'em out!), so I thought we'd join right in.

And so, without further adieu, I present: the Mad Hattery Awards of 2009, recognizing the wackiest, zaniest, and most completely out-of-control hattery worn this year!

And the winners are (drumroll please)...

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First of all, major congrats to Lord and Lady Nicholas -- they're expecting their second child, a younger sibling for son Albert Windsor.

Second of all, oh my Lord, is Lady Nicholas aware that she's got a discolored cabbage on her head?

Paola, this is the sort of mad hattery I've long been expecting from you.  I understand if you need a few months off when the latest little Windsor is born, but I want to see you back and hatting about soon!

Yay, another new royal face for the blog! I love when Windsors start popping out of the woodwork! This is Lady Nicholas Windsor (she's the one on the left), who is unsurprisingly married to Lord Nicholas Windsor, the younger son of The Duke and Duchess of Kent.

Paola comes from a delightfully eccentric Croatian-Italian-British family that does delightfully eccentric things like fight with other Croation nobles about which princely titles they're allowed to use. Love it! And so it's no surprise that Lady Nicholas also has a delightfully eccentric taste in hats, like this vintage-inspired number that seems to be a tribute to the style the Queen Mum liked so much. Excellent debut, ma'am!

Do come back often, Paola -- I have a feeling you could give even Princess Beatrice, the maddest of royal hatters, a run for her money if they really gave you the chance to shine...