The wedding of Viscount Linley and The Hon. Serena Stanhope twenty years ago today was a “mini” royal wedding – while not a prince himself, David Armstrong-Jones was the son of a princess and a member of the extended British Royal Family. And we all know that being a member of the extended British Royal family means there will be some great hats at your wedding! After looking at the bride’s veil and dress earlier today, let’s now turn our attention to the guests’ hats.
David’s mother Princess Margaret wore a deep claret velvet pillbox hat topped in pomegranate and black spiky feathers. His sister, Lady Sarah Armstrong Jones, wore an unembellished rust coloured straw cloche.
Queen Elizabeth wore a salmon pink fabric covered hat with rounded crown and high, upturned, pleated brim by Philip Somerville. Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother (and grandmother of the groom) wore one of her signature veiled capulet hats with upturned front brim and side spray of feathers.
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Princess Anne, who had married Vice Admiral Sir Timothy Laurence less than a year earlier, repeated the turquoise blue veiled pillbox with side rose she had originally debuted during the mid 1980s. (Anne would later wear this hat to Charles and Camilla’s wedding in 2005 and her grandmother’s 100th birthday in 2000).
Lady Helen Taylor wore powder blue bowler hat with wide ribbon wrapped around the crown. Princess Diana was also in blue- a large blue lampshade style hat with white ribbon trim around the brim and wrapped around the crown designed by Philip Somerville. At the time, I believe some were surprised to see her at this wedding as she and Prince Charles had announced their separation ten months earlier and her future royal role was unclear.
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Princess Alexandra of Kent wore a dove grey hat with rounded crown wrapped in a black ribbon and trimmed with flowers and net. I think this hat translates fairly well today, as do the hats of Julia Ogilvy (her daughter-in-law) in black and and the Duchess of Gloucester in dark teal blue.
The only foreign royals I could find at this wedding were Queen Anne-Marie of Greece and Princess Salimah Aga Khan. Queen Anne-Marie wore a large black (or chocolate brown?!) hat with an upturned brim and a high almost Puritan shaped pointed crown. That hat was a little too Halloween-esque for my taste. My favourite hat at this wedding was the brown capulet worn by Princess Salimah Aga Khan. The shape is so chic and the black band around the crown and trim around the upturned brim gives a bit of punchy contrast.
Serena’s mother Virginia looked very elegant in a purple picture hat with slightly curved brim (she is to the left of Princess Margaret, below). Her hat, like several others, has aged very well- surprisingly well, in fact. While many hats at this wedding do seem rather dated, there are an equal number that could easily be worn today.
As I sign off this post and wish Viscount and Viscountess Linley the happiest of anniversaries, I can’t resist asking- Which hat at this wedding is your favourite?
Photos from Getty as indicated; Dave Parker via Corbis
Royal Hats 
Very nice so see these hats, to me, Princess Di will always be my favorite hat lady, she looked so beautiful. I miss seeing her around showing all the young ladies today how to dress.
I feel the same way.
I’m glad Sarah Chatto has left her boho style behind and now embraces more of a 1950s silhouette and hats. And earth tones with white just looks weird.
I liked the hats worn by the mother of the bride and Princess Anne. They would both work today. The other hats seem dated to me. As for Lady Sarah…I choose to be quiet and silent as can be on her fashion choices for the day! No, wait…I can’t… what was she thinking?! This look did not look good then and it does not look good now.
I always loved this photograph of Princess Diana and The Queen in their hats.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/diamond-jubilee-20-million-set-859669
One can immediately recognize one of The Queen Mum’s hats because of the distinct shape.
Interesting how Helen and Anne’s blue hats translate so much better to today than Diana’s does. We all thought her fashion was “it” in the 80s and 90s but very little of it still works. Why isn’t she in the group photo?
Princess Anne certainly gets her money’s worth out of a hat.
At the time, I thought Princess Diana was the Best Hat winner with her “lampshade” hat, but time hasn’t be kind … I now think that Serena’s going away hat was the most beautiful. Serena’s Philip Treacy hat would still look good today. In fact, I see Mette Marit of Norway wearing it with a black coat!
I don’t really care for the Queen’s hat. Nowadays, many people complain about the hats that Angela Kelly makes for her but this one is much worse.
Princess Diana always hat the most beautiful hats. Whenever she wore a hat us gals would run out and try to buy the closest thing we could find! LOL! This hat looks so nice with her bluea nd white suit.
I really enjoyed this retrospective…..and would like to see more.