Hm.  Frankly, I always expect more hattery fireworks from a French actress whose princely husband won the Italian version of Dancing with the Stars.

PHOTO CREDITS: bekia.es

HRH The Prince of Asturias and Miss Letizia Ortiz Rocasolano
May 22, 2004

Only a week after Crown Prince Frederik married Mary Donaldson in Denmark, Prince Felipe of Spain tied the knot with journalist Letizia Ortiz in Madrid.  Theirs was the first wedding of a member of the Spanish royal family to take place in Madrid since the wedding of King Alfonso XIII and Princess Ena of Battenberg in 1906.  That wedding was marred by an assassination attempt on the royal couple and the tragic deaths of several bystanders -- this one, thankfully, went more smoothly, although it was a cloudy, rainy day in the Spanish capital.

There were a few controversies, however, about Felipe's choice of bride.  Letizia, a journalist who covered the September 11th attacks in New York and the Iraq War, will be the first commoner to be queen of Spain.  She also had previously been briefly married and divorced.  However, because her first wedding was a civil rather than religious one, the Catholic Church did not recognize it, and she was free to marry Felipe.

Felipe and Letizia have become quite a working team since their wedding, frequently appearing together on royal engagements.  They have also had two daughters, Infanta Leonor (born in 2005) and Infanta Sofia (born in 2007).  Leonor is expected to become queen of Spain in her own right one day -- that is, if her parents don't provide her with a baby brother!

Wedding Hatters

Another princess debut at the royal wedding: this is Princess Clothilde, wife of Prince Emanuele Filiberto, son of the pretender (or one of them -- it's so hard to keep track!) to the Italian throne.  His mother, Marina, is the princess who showed up at the Danish royal wedding in the hugely blingy tiara -- and sunglasses.

Clothilde was famous in her own right before marrying a prince -- she's a French actress.  The whole family's pretty flamboyant; EF even competed on the Italian version of Dancing with the Stars!

I feel like Clothilde might have gotten caught in the middle of some sort of pillow fight on the way to the wedding -- what's with the random bursts of feathers, including the ones on the sides of her head?  It's like a feathery version of Princess Leia's doughnut buns!