THE ROYAL WEDDING GUESTS 2: FOREIGN ROYALTY...



MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT, FOREIGN DIGNITARIES & THE STARS...


Of course, there were thousands of guests attending this wedding - it was a major State Occasion, and the guest list reflected the importance of Britain on the world stage...there were foreign royals and ambassadors from every nation, lots of British politicians and many other dignitaries...
There were also many notable people left out - Tony and Cherie Blair for example, and also Gordon Brown and his wife Sarah for another - who knows why !! For all their faults, they were still Prime Ministers...

There were also many stars who received an invitation from William and Catherine, many of whom were invited because of all the amazing charity work they do behind the scenes...it isn't always obvious why a particular person gets an invitation to an event like this, but if you are wondering about anyone's inclusion in this affair, trust me - there will have been a very good reason !!




FOREIGN ROYALTY

I shall start with other Royals, many of whom will be unfamiliar, so pardon me if I get any details wrong...also if I have left anyone out, it'll be because there are very few good photos of them or none at all...

Let's start with some of the European Royals...

PRINCE AND CROWN PRINCESS OF SWEDEN

This is Prince Daniel and the Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden...

 

These two got married not so long ago - in June 2010 - Daniel being a commoner and her personal trainer...she is of course, heir to the throne of Sweden...

Princess Victoria is looking amazing in a faux-wrap dress designed by Elie Saab, from his Spring 2011 RTW Collection...
She teamed it with a peach wide-brimmed hat, snakeskin clutch and peach shoes...a marvellous outfit and entirely fitting for a royal wedding in the Spring...

 

PRINCE ALBERT OF MONACO & MISS CHARLENE WHITTSTOCK

Here's Prince Albert of Monaco - he is the eldest son of Prince Rainier and Princess Grace ( neé Kelly, of course ) and is currently the head of the House of Grimaldi and the Sovereign Prince of Monaco since his father's death back in April 2005...he is currently engaged to South African Olympic champion swimmer, Charlene Whittstock, seen here, accompanying him in London... 

 

She looked extremely elegant in her pale grey coat designed by Akris...I like the wide Peter Pan-style collar and her choice of white accessories to go with it - the white and pale grey combination is very classy in a totally ice-cool way !! It also complements his own pale grey morning suit...



QUEEN SOFIA WITH PRINCE FELIPE & PRINCESS LETIZIA OF SPAIN

This is the current Spanish Royal Family - Queen Sofia on the left, in a beautiful purple suit with a matching fascinator, accompanied by her son, Prince Felipe and his wife Princess Letizia...

 

I like the Queen's purple outfit, which is duchess satin with interesting flowery button trims all down the front...she looks very smart - regal and dressy without looking too much like a Mother-of-the-Bride, which is a trap that many older women can and do fall into...

However, the member of this family who really takes the fashion prize though, is without a doubt, the Princess Letizia - she looks sensational...

  



I absolutely adore this gorgeous dusky pink dress with rows and rows of pin-tucks and embroidery, coupled with her matching cloche hat with its little birdcage veil...she looks amazing, and I do wish that everyone looked this good !! The young Princesses of York could learn a thing or two from her, I think...

QUEEN MARGRETHE II OF DENMARK

Here's Queen Margrethe II of Denmark, looking positively resplendent in her brilliant turquoise coat and matching hat...I love the curly feathers in her tiny cap-shaped pillbox hat !! As she wears glasses, it's a tricky thing choosing a hat which shows her face to the crowd - as a monarch, this seems to be a pre-requisite feature of all their hats - and also sits nicely with the rimless specs she favours...but in this case she has succeeded pretty well !!

As there were no close-ups of this outfit from the actual wedding, I have obtained a close-up from another occasion - see, she has a different brooch on the lapel - just so that we can see the hat details...

 

There's an interesting tale about this Queen...Margrethe was not born to be the monarch. At the time of her birth, only males could ascend the throne of Denmark, owing to the changes in succession laws enacted in the 1850s, when the Glücksburg branch of the family was chosen to succeed. As she had no brothers, it was assumed that her uncle Prince Knud would one day assume the throne.

However, the popularity of Frederik and his daughters and the more prominent role of women in Danish life started the complicated process of altering the constitution to that of Male Primogeniture, which is what we have here in Britain...it's not a perfect system in this age of female equality but it's better than no accession for the ladies at all...

The process of changing the Danish constitution started in 1947, not long after her father ascended the throne as Frederick IX and it became clear that Queen Ingrid would have no more children. That proposal had to be passed by two Parliaments in succession and then by a referendum, which was held on 27 March 1953. The new Act of Succession permitted female succession to the throne of Denmark, according to male-preference primogeniture, where a female can ascend to the throne only if she does not have a brother.

As I said, it's not a perfect system , but it's better than nothing !!

However, since 2009, the Danes have had the Salic Law of Succession, like the Belgians below - where the eldest child inherits the throne regardless of gender...the problem with this way of doing things is that the family name will change with every female, if she marries...this is why quite a number of countries still do things the old fashioned way !!

CROWN PRINCE WILLEM - ALEXANDER & PRINCESS MAXIMA OF THE NETHERLANDS

Crown Prince Willem-Alexander is the heir to the throne of the Netherlands, and will succeed after his mother, the present Queen Beatrix passes away...

Interestingly, he is a direct descendant of Anne, the Princess Royal and Princess of Orange, eldest daughter of British King George II (1683 - 1760) - however, under the British Act of Settlement, Prince Willem-Alexander forfeited his (distant) succession rights to the throne of the United Kingdom, because he married a Roman Catholic. He married Princess Maxima back in 2002, and she has accompanied him many times to other huge State Occasions like this all over Europe...

She chose a beautiful nude lace two-piece outfit with a graceful wide round neckline and a scalloped edging to the jacket and skirt hems...she also went for a matching turban-style hat and simple shoes...bag and wrap in the same colour and thus she conformed nicely to the very popular fashion for colour-blocking that has been a big feature of most of the outfits at this wedding !! Wearing the same colour from head to toe seems to be the trend of the day here...

 

She gets a gold star too for looking so elegant and tasteful !!



CROWN PRINCE PAVLOS & CROWN PRINCESS MARIA-CHANTAL OF GREECE

Crown Princess Maria-Chantal of Greece also wore the same colour from head to toe with this silver-grey coat embellished with squiggly embroidery and an amazing hat which really took my breath away - what a head-piece - beautiful fabric flowers under the brim, which stand straight up in the air...absolutely gorgeous and completely nutty of course !!

 

She is quite talented in her own right incidentally - she designs a luxury range of children's clothing under her own label, which she established in 2002 and she has also written and illustrated a children's fairy-tale entitled 'The Frog Prince' and has plans for more like that soon...

PRINCE PHILIPPE & PRINCESS MATHILDE OF BELGIUM

Prince Philippe and his wife Princess Mathilde were here representing the royal family of Belgium and incidentally, the family Ducal name is Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, which is actually the same as our own royal family, before it got changed to Windsor back in World War I...
The first duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha was Ernst I, who reigned from 1826 until his death in 1844, and it was his second son, Prince Albert (1819–1861), who got hitched to our own Princess Victoria in 1840, and thus is the progenitor of the current British royal family...

I have also found out that in Belgium, they operate under Salic Law of Succession, which means that it's the eldest child that succeeds to the throne, regardless of sex...

 

Doesn't Princess Mathilde look lovely - I love this colour for myself actually - this is the kind of thing I might think about for a wedding outfit, especially the wonderful hat !!

I have to remark on the big black shoes though - perhaps a pair of simpler courts in the same teal colour would have been better, and wouldn't have looked like they were going to trip her up at any moment !!
The other thing is that I don't like quite so many pieces of jewellery being worn all at the same time - big statement necklaces need to be worn alone to have impact..
I have to comment that royals the world over are guilty of doing this all the time...too many bits and bobs are confusing - I mean how many diamonds do you really need to wear at any one time ?!!

GRAND DUCHESS OF LUXEMBOURG

Duchess Maria-Teresa chose to go with an Elie Saab dress and matching jacket to this wedding - this ensemble came from the same Elie Saab Spring RTW Collection that Princess Victoria's peach wrap dress came from too...

 

It looks nice but doesn't overwhelm me with fashion lust I must admit...she hasn't the tall graceful build of the model on the runway, and the collar isn't falling quite as well as it did when it was shown, but she does look nice in it, especially when it's all dressed up with a hat and bag...
It's a shame that the dress is all creased across the front !! This is one of my own pet hates, but it's difficult to know how to stop something creasing in this way, short of always buying things made of polyester - and we certainly wouldn't want that !!



AMEERA AL TAWIL OF SAUDI ARABIA

Ameera Al Tawil is one of two wives married to the Saudi Prince Al Walid bin Talal, who is the nephew of the Saudi King Abdullah...she looked sensational in her amazing coat-dress of dusky pink rose lace, designed and made-to-measure by Zuhair Murad Couture...matched with a feathery hat in the same colour, she also went for that colour blocking trend...

 

PRINCESS LALLA SALMA OF MOROCCO

Princess Lalla Salma of Morocco is the Princess Consort of King Mohammed VI of Morocco, and the first wife of a Moroccan ruler to have been publicly acknowledged and given a royal title...(it is interesting to note that Ameera al Tawil, above, has absolutely no reference to her at all, in the context of this wedding...I had to go to his Wikipedia page to find out that he had two wives, but that's all I found out there - neither if them were even named...and who the other wife is remains a mystery...so therefore it's nice to see someone given her own title and recognised publicly as his wife...

She looked amazing in traditional Moroccan dress, in the palest lilac colour with white, silver and gold embroidery all down the front...it sets off her reddish hair beautifully...



THE POLITICIANS AND THE STARS

Next up will be everyone else of any note...

ANNABEL BALLIN

Annabel Ballin is the fiancée of Sam Whaley-Cohen, the dental entrepeneur and jockey who won the Cheltenham Gold Cup, and who is a friend of Kate Middleton's...she is a children's party planner and runs her own company 'Hats & Bells' along with her business partner Hatty Stead...

  

I really liked her style here - she looks amazing in this burnt-orange print bubble skirt and cropped black jacket - not everyone could pull such a daring 1980s look off for such a big occasion, but she does it with flare and ease - that has to be admired, even if you don't like the actual outfit !! Her orange hat looks good too !!
Of course, it does help that she is so leggy...

CHELSY DAVY

This is, of course, the long-time girlfriend of Prince Harry, and she was seen leaving the wedding service at the Abbey, in the back of the Rolls carrying the two Princesses of York back to Buckingham Palace...

 

Her brilliant turquoise outfit was designed by Alberta Ferretti and her hat was by Victoria Grant...I'm not enamoured of this ensemble really - it all looks a bit uncomfortable, with an awkward neckline, and what is that showing above the edge of the jacket ?
This jacket looks like it may be a tad too small for her around the bust area - even though it isn't actually gaping, it looks tight !!

JOSS STONE

Here's someone who looked much better - this is singer Joss Stone of course, and doesn't she look lovely ?!! I love her raspberry pink suit from British upmarket high street chain 'Hobbs', and cream straw hat with tiny little rose-buds all around the brim - it is very pretty indeed !!

Incidentally, this Hobbs outfit would have cost her around £600 which just goes to show that you don't have to spend a massive fortune to look great - here's a cost breakdown  :-

The jacket appears to be the 'Cheyne' jacket at £179, and the dress is the matching 'Cheyne' dress at £169, also the shoes are the 'Pembridge Bow Peep' court at £149, and her bag looks like it might be the 'Daria' clutch at £89...all told - without the hat - around £586 !!

Her amazingly pretty hat, and a lovely silver filigree bracelet complete her look - and furthermore she looks like she is enjoying herself immensely...

 



NICK CLEGG & MIRIAM CLEGG

Here's our Deputy Prime Minister, and Leader of the Liberal Democrats, Nick Clegg with his wife Miriam, who went all out for an absolutely fantastic Spanish look for her wedding outfit ...

 

There has been a certain amount of dissention over her outfit, but I think she looked amazing !!
She has devised a look that reflects her Spanish family ancestry perfectly - her own family name is Miriam González Durántez, and she was born in Olmedo, in Spain - and therefore this hot red, black, and white colour combination and spotty net concoction is entirely appropriate, and suits her extremely well...I simply love her turban with the amazing red flower on the side !! The suit is by Spanish designer Miguel Palacia, and her amazing little hat was designed by Spanish milliner Conchitta !! Her shoes are from Zara, the Spanish fashion chain, and the gloves are Aspinal of London.





NICKY AND CHARLOTTE McFARLANE

Here are Nicky and her daughter Charlotte McFarlane, looking fab in their co-ordinating green dress and full length coat with orange embroidery...these two are very special guests of William and Catherine - here's why...



This is the mother and daughter design team responsible for making the bridesmaids' dresses, and they described the task as a "huge honour" and revealed that the duchess was involved in every detail of the design.

Nicki Macfarlane said she was first approached by the bride's mother Carole Middleton in January, before meeting with the bride-to-be to discuss her "vision" for the four girls' dresses. She said:
"We are incredibly proud and quite surprised. It was a wonderful, wonderful day and a bit of a rollercoaster of a few months since we found out [that we had been chosen as the designers].

"We were initially approached by Carole Middleton on behalf of Catherine. She phoned a couple of times and we had a meeting and then after that we had a phone call from Catherine. First of all, we were talking about her vision and whether she felt we understood what she wanted to achieve. She didn't want anything too fussy, that was her initial thought, and there had to be a definite echo of her own dress."

Charlotte Macfarlane, who lives near Tunbridge Wells in Kent, added: "She was involved at every stage actually. She had very clear ideas about what she wanted, and we worked with her over the last few months to realise that vision. There was not a detail on those dresses that Catherine wasn't involved in. It has been the biggest challenge because it has been the most exciting thing that has happened to us ever, and we haven't been able to tell anyone."

Her mother, who stored the dresses at her home in Marlborough, Wiltshire, said:
"I've never told so many fibs in all my life. I have fibbed morning noon and night. The dresses were kept under lock and key, and they never left my house - they were made in my house. We didn't discuss it with anyone, and we didn't show anyone. It was very hard because you have a wonderful bit of news to tell people but you can't."

The bridesmaids - Lady Louise Windsor, Margarita Armstrong Jones, Grace Van Cutsem and Eliza Lopes - had four fittings for the ballerina length dresses. They were made from silk satin gazar, organza and wild silk and were trimmed with delicate English Cluny lace. The design featured a full bow pleated skirt, puff sleeves and a gold sash tied in a bow. Each of the four girls had their name and the date of the wedding hand-embroidered onto the lining of their dresses.

SAMANTHA & DAVID CAMERON

Here's our Prime Minister and Leader of the Tory Party, David Cameron of course, with his wife Samantha...

 


I am one of those who remain unconvinced about Samantha's look here - I think that, while it's not the rule to wear a hat to a wedding these days, no, not even to the biggest-scale, highest High Society wedding in the land - but as she is the wife of the Prime Minister it would have been appropriate for her to set an example...

Or maybe she doesn't want people to think she is upper class ? What nonsense...
Lord knows, we had enough kerfuffle over whether David was going to wear his morning suit, or whether he was going to go for a lounge suit, for fear of appearing to be a toff...
Well guess what David - you are a toff and this is a toff's wedding !!
There's no getting away from it now...a morning suit is entirely the appropriate thing to wear, so get over yourself !! Everyone expects the Prime Minister to dress accordingly at a wedding like this !!
As it happened, luckily someone managed to persuade him that it was the correct thing for him to wear and therefore we must apply the same rules to his lady wife, I think...it would have been the most appropriate thing for her to wear a hat to this wedding, especially as her husband wore a morning suit...she looks positively under-dressed next to him.

Not that she didn't look nice - I liked her teal-blue Burberry dress a lot, especially with all the crinkly pleats...however, I thought that she wore too much jewellery - again, there was too much of everything !! Her hair-clips were designed by Ericson Beamon for Erdem, and likewise her necklace, but why both together - wasn't one thing enough ?!! Both are lovely pieces in their own right, but both together is a bit much...

I would have liked to see her with the necklace and a teal-blue hat or fascinator... I did like the amazing burnt orange colour of her necklace, and along with the scarf she was holding, the colour simply zinged against the teal-blue...



TARA PALMER-TOMKINSON & SANTA MONTEFIORE

Two sisters with a fashion passion - Tara and her sister Santa both looked amazing as they went in to the Abbey...

 

Tara, especially, looked very colourful in her cobalt blue dress - designed by Deborah Milner - and her wrap, bag, gloves, shoes, and her Philip Treacy hat were all matching - again with the colour blocking - and I have to say that she looked stunning !! She gets a gold star, even though some of you may find the total head-to-toe colour a bit much ...

Santa went for the purple option and looked great with her superb flowery chrysanthemum hat - simply fabulous !!

VICTORIA & DAVID BECKHAM

David and Victoria Beckham both attended this wedding looking ultra-smart - he in a Ralph Lauren morning-suit and topper, wing collar and pale silver-grey tie - very dashing indeed, and Victoria in one of her own designs - a swing-back shift-dress in the darkest midnight blue, which rather swamped her actually, but disguised her impending baby bump very well...don't know why she felt the need to do that but there you go...

 


However smart they looked, I feel it is my duty to point out that David Beckham is wearing his beautiful Order of the British Empire (O.B.E.) medal on the wrong side of his jacket...it should be on the left-hand lapel - whoops !!

Later on, he was clearly put straight by someone in the Abbey, as he emerged with it pinned on the (correct) left-hand side side - how embarrassing...

On the right lapel here...



On the left lapel...



I hope you enjoyed this wedding as much as I did, and I think I'm right in saying that this will do more for the British Fashion Industry than William and Kate could have thought possible !! Almost every designer featured was British, with a few exceptions...and all those amazing hats will bring the art of hat-wearing back into fashion for weddings I hope...


Next event on my fashion radar is the Annual Costume Institute Ball at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, which takes place tomorrow evening...the theme of this year's exhibition will be "Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty."  so we can expect loads of Alexander McQueen dresses then...
Anna Wintour, Stella McCartney, and Colin Firth are set to co-chair the event, and I'll be looking at all the amazing evening-wear being worn, and of course, chastising mercilessly those who fall flat in the fashion stakes, so keep a look out for the Best and Worst Dressed at the Met. coming soon...