Gotta love a lady who commits to a look from the top of her kokoshnik all the way to the tips of her shoes, don't you?

PHOTO CREDITS: Andreas Rentz/Getty Images

Heck, if you're a member of the Romanov family, can you really wear any kind of tiara other than a kokoshnik?  This one doesn't seem to be a historical piece from the Russian imperial collection, so we'll just call it Maria Vladmirovna's Kokoshnik Tiara.  Whether it's new or old, I think it's beautiful!

PHOTO CREDITS: PPE

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

Here's something you don't see every day: a Romanov!  This brand-new hatter is Grand Duchess Maria Vladmirovna of Russia, one of the claimants to the headship of the House of Romanov.  (The Russian royal disputes are just as strange and complicated as the Italian and French ones!)  Our very first Russian royal -- how exciting!

The Spanish-born Maria is a great-great-granddaughter twice over of Czar Alexander II of Russia; she's also descended from Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.  Her great-grandfather, Grand Duke Vladimir, was an uncle of the murdered Russian Czar Nicholas II. 

And I'm really not sure what in the world she's wearing on her head.  Is that an upholstered halo of some sort?  A headband on steroids?