On Saturday, the great-granddaughter of the late Lord Mountbatten of Burma, Alexandra Knatchbull, was married to Thomas Hooper at Romsey Abbey, near the bride’s family estate Broadlands, in Hampshire.
The bride looked wonderfully elegant in a structured silk gown topped with a lace veil, anchored with the Mounbatten Star Tiara.
The bride’s family has very close ties with the British royal family – she is a great-great-great granddaughter of Queen Victoria, her grandmother and the Duke of Edinburgh are first cousins, one of her godmothers was the late Princess of Wales, her mother and the Duke of Edinburgh are long-time carriage driving partners, her family’s estate played host to royal honeymoons of the Queen in 1947 and the Prince of Wales in 1981 – and it was no surprise to see British royals attended the wedding. The Prince of Wales stepped in to escort the elegant bride into the church (her father Lord Brabourne is unwell and rumours are that relations are strained with his daughter following this scandal).
The bride’s mother, Lady Brabourne, topped her silver silk dress with a pale grey straw picture hat with sweeping brim and squared, flat topped crown. The hat is trimmed with a hat band, side bow and wide brim piping all made of the same silk as Penny’s dress, bringing the two pieces together in a unified and very elegant ensemble. We have seen Lady Brabourne in several similar picture hats with upswept brims and the style and scale suits her very well.
Designer: I believe it is Dillon Wallwork
Previously worn: This hat is new
The bride’s grandmother, Countess Mountbatten of Burma, wore a delphinium blue hat with upturned brim, edged in a wide stripe of silk. The same silk formed a ruched a pleated hatband around the base of the crown.
Queen Elizabeth surprised not only by appearing at this event with the Duke of Edinburgh, but by also wearing a new hat. In a light coral straw, her hat features a short, sharply upswept brim on one side and a flat crown. The hat is embellished with silk edged ribbon bows on the side (the same ribbon looks to be used for overlapping hat bands around the base of the crown) and silk flowers. I think it’s a great hat for Her Majesty and really like the contrast between the hat’s crisp angles and it’s very soft, romantic trim.
Designer: Rachel Trevor Morgan
Previously worn: This hat is new
As she is apt to do, Princess Anne wore a hat we’ve not seen on her in a while. With a pink silk ruched crown and slightly duller, thulian pink straw brim, the hat features a gently raised brim on one side and three straw calla lilies on the side. It’s nice to see Anne in some colour- I really like the shape of this brim and the straw flowers- but I’m not sold on the shiny silk crown. My favourite part of the ensemble is how the different shades and textures of pink combine to create a harmonious look that’s interesting and unified but not overly matchy.
Designer: Walter Wright
Previously worn: June 21, 2001 (and likely numerous others)
Princess Alexandra wore a cream straw hat with rounded crown and cartwheel brim embellished with a cream widely woven net veil, pale green silk roses and tiny curling feathers. It’s a great hat for her and I really like the height of the crown- slightly elevated but not as high as some of the other designs she wears.
Designer: likely Rachel Trevor Morgan
Previously worn: This hat is new
The wedding was also well attended by members of the Greek royal family (I didn’t realise until preparing this post that Alexandra Knatchbull was one of the bridesmaids at Crown Prince Pavlos and Crown Princess Marie-Chantall’s wedding back in 1995). Queen Sofia of Spain topped her grey suit with a headpiece made from grey silk leaves, beaded berry clusters and a swath of very fine grey net tulle. Her sister, Princess Irene of Greece, wore similar style headpiece of dotted navy net tulle, anchored with a simple navy bow.
Queen Anne-Marie of Greece topped her navy lace dress with a simple pillbox hat, trimmed in a slim bow. Anne-Marie’s short hairstyle favours small hats and she wears this navy pillbox well.
Designer: unknown
Previously worn: April 13, 2011; April 16, 2010
I thought there were some beautiful hats at this event- which ones stood out to you, most?
Photos from Rex Features and Rachel Adams via the Southern Daily Echo
Royal Hats 
Just found these wedding pictures. Love Lady Brabourne and the Queen. Wish Sofia would wear a proper hat. Of much interest to me is that the Knatchbulls are descendants of Jane Austen through her favorite niece.
Love the Mother of the Bride’s ensemble… just beautiful.
Nice to see the Princess Royal in some colour… not too keen on the Calla Lilly trim, of the dark shoes, bag and gloves.
A soft Grey would look lovely with the pink!
I think everyone looks stellar. It seems a happy family affair, despite the awkwardness with Lord Braburne. So wonderful to see so many royals attend too, it must have been like a mini family reunion for all of them. Though I’m sure they see each other lots that they don’t share with us 😀 Lady Braburne is my favorite, so elegant! I think Anne also looks great though the contrasting straw flowers bother me as they are so dull, it might have been better to go with another color rather than a pink that didn’t match.
I agree with Jimbo that it was a much better showing of hats than last weekend’s wedding. Lady Brabourne looked fabulous. Queen Anne-Marie wore her repeated pillbox vey well, but I think my overall favorite was Princess Alexandra.
What a beautiful wedding! All the hats and outfits looked lovely. Not one stood out as really awful. I love particularly Anne Marie’s, Lady Brabourne and Princess Alexandra. And of course the bride’s dress – which looks like the kind of thing I wouldn’t mind wearing to my wedding!
This was a great turnout for such a smaller wedding. The bride looked beautiful in her tiara and veil, although I did find her dress to be quite boring in my opinion. Loved the groom’s royal blue waistcoat, especially with that silver tie.
Lady Brabourne knows how to rock a big hat, and there is no exception here! I absolutely adore this hat, and the silver is fantastic for her! She and Camilla definitely can do battle when it comes to oversized portrait hats (although there would be no losers there IMO haha).
Nice to see Patricia out again. Looks like this hat is one she has repeated many times before, evidenced more clearly at the 2000 Trooping the Colour:
Embed from Getty Images
HM looks simply marvelous, and I do hope we get to see this hat again. I expected Charles to be at this event, but HM was definitely a big surprise, especially in a new hat. This really demonstrates just how close the Knatchbulls are to the Royal Family.
I agree the shiny silk seems slightly too much for this hat, but since it’s a beautiful color and great hat for Anne (even if it is a repeat that I have never seen before), I refuse to truly complain at all! More of this please, Anne. Brava!
Good to see Alexandra again, and while this hat is pretty standard stuff for her, she rarely gets it wrong; I only wish the pale green was a bit more saturated to something like a true sage so it stood out more and added a little more color to this ensemble (minor complaint though).
Still not certain what the connection between the Greeks and the Knatchbulls is. At any rate, I thought Sofia looked quite nice, and anymore this is as close to a hat we will ever see on Sofia. Considering we never see Irene, it was good to see her in this veil.
Finally, it’s interesting how the lighting makes Anne-Marie’s pillbox look black, but in the link to a previous photo, this hat definitely shows up navy. Anne-Marie looks very polished, but I do wish they would experiment more hat shapes and brim on her.
Overall, a great showing at this wedding. Brava!
Knatchbull and Greek connection just googled 2nd Countess of Burma as I was curious about her age,
check out Wiki for her bio
it’s through the DOE probably, extremely complicated but her lineage is very interesting
I definitely understand the Knatchbull connection to Philip before (hence why I wasn’t surprised at all to see Charles), but still having a hard time coming up with how the Greek Royal Family is connected closely enough that it warranted senior members to show up. Not a big deal though.
The Knatchbulls and Greek royals are both cousins of Prince Philip but not with each other:
Prince Philip’s mother, Princess Alice, was the older sister of Lord Mountbatten (making Philip a first cousin of Patricia Brabourne)
Prince Philip’s father, Prince Andrew of Greece, was the younger brother of Constantine I of Greece (making Philip a first cousin of the current King Constantine’s father, the late King Paul of Greece. That makes the Prince of Wales and siblings second cousins with King Constantine)
I suspect the families still consider themselves distant cousins and that friendships have been strengthened during the 30+ years that King Constantine and Queen Anne-Marie lived in England.
Lady Brabourne looks stunning. The Queen, Princess Anne, and Princess Alexandra are also top notch in their ensembles. I like Q Anne-Marie’s pillbox and Q Sofia’s headpiece. The bride is lovely.
Princess Anne and Alexandra look fabulous!!
That is one rockin’ MOB outfit on Penny Brabourne. FABULOUS.
Queen Elizabeth also looks great. Her hat has more pink than orange in it and it makes it work for her.
Anne, Anne, Anne…. that hat HAS to be from the 1990s because it looks it.
Princess Alexandra always looks elegant. No different here.
The hairnets are bad bad bad.
So….. leave it to the Brit royals to make things look dignified when it’s totally awkward that the bride didn’t ask her dad to give her away.
Lady B’s hat is delicious! I do like HM in peach. Her hat would have been great for Ascot — Princess Ann’s hat is stunning on her.
Lady Braebourne’s outfit is elegant, hat excellent. A muted color, the outfit nonetheless stands out for its beauty.
I too am surprised that QE2 had a new outfit for this. The hat certainly looks rather like one of RTM’s typical designs. It’s beautiful. Odd if it hasn’t been confirmed, though. The coat too looks like the recent oft-repeated Stuart Parvin model, most recent version of which was the bright, bright green for the birthday on the balcony wave. The vivid dress colors actually bear less resemblance to the coat or hat, though, than usual. I’m not yet convinced that the dress is new and made for this coat and hat.
I like Queen Sofia’s hat. I think its shape brings out the design in her jacket; and since, as you said, she almost never wears a hat, this is special. The Queen of Greece looks lovely, her sister-in-law Irene like typical Princess Irene.
Anne is my winner, love the hat and the outfit
Lady Brabourne is the winner hat-wise, but I also love Princess Anne’s whole look. Just lovely. The only misses I thought were Queen Sofia and her sister.
It’s more of a hat than we’ve seen on Queen Sofia in years…. isn’t a hat miss better than no hat at all?!
Lady Brabourne takes the 1st prize at this wedding . . . fantastic!
HM looks wonderful, as always, albeit very predictable. I like this new hat better than a previous favorite in a similar hue:
https://royalhats.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/2014-04-09.jpg?w=440&h=305
Princess Alexandra looks extremely elegant.
Without sounding overly critical, IMO, this wedding was soooooooooo much nicer than the one posted last week.
My favorite hats at this wedding are Queen Elizabeth’s, Princess Alexandra’s and Lady Brabourne’s. The Queen’s hat is a typical style for her, a good size for her petite figure and nicely trimmed. Princess Alexandra’s hat is a great shape and size, and I like the way the netting was used to soften the edges of the hat without hanging down. Lady Brabourne’s hat is beautiful. It did seem to me to be a bit large for her frame, as did the neck of her dress. Happy to see everyone looking so nice overall.
Lady Brabourne looks stunning – she is a very elegant woman and that outfit is Mother of the Bride par excellence. I like the concept of the bride’s dress but find the execution a bit lacking, the fit isn’t great and the fabric does crease. She does look classy and very happy though.
Surprised at HM in a new outfit – after so many new ones recently it seems odd to debut a new one for this event too. It’s nice, and fills the somewhat small peace niche in her wardrobe.
I loved all of the hats very pretty and summery. I also loved the wedding dress simple yet elegant.
Wow, these are some really nice looking hats here, and well worn. The standard in dress and hatwear set by the British monarchy for attending royal weddings is clearly the one to aim for.
Overall the hats were all nice.