Category Archives: Sweden

Swedish Royal Wedding: The Bride’s Family

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Royal Hats Queen Silvia wore Queen Sofia’s Tiara (also known as the Nine Prong Tiara) which is way too spiky for my liking but seems to work for her. This tiara was also a great compliment to her intricately beaded pale green gown.

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Crown Princess Victoria debuted a “new” tiara, Princess Lilian’s Laurel Wreath Tiara. Princess Lilian, Victoria’s great aunt, passed away in March this year and left her tiara to Victoria. I was secretly hoping she would choose to wear it for the first time today and thought it looked great on her. With it’s open center, this tiara is a little difficult to wear – it might look even better on Victoria with some higher hair nestled behind it next time? Victoria looked fantastic overall, although she could have probably worn a paper bag and we all would be too busy watching adorable Princess Estelle to notice!
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Photos from Getty as indicated

Swedish Royal Wedding: The Bride

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Royal Hats Princess Madeleine choose a beautifully romantic bridal look in a short sleeved lace gown with sweeping train. A sketch can be seen here. A press release on the Swedish Monarchy website reads,

“Princess Madeleine’s wedding dress was created by the Italian designer Valentino Garavani. The wedding dress is made from pleated silk organza with appliquéd ivory-coloured Chantilly lace. The upper section of the bodice is lace with a deep-cut back. Narrow vertical pleats open up from the accentuated waist, above the wide skirt, which ends with a four-metre-long train. The veil is also silk organza, and is edged with tulle scatted with point d’esprit dots and small Chantilly lace orange blossom. The Princess’s shoes are ivory white organdy with woven point d’esprit dots.The Princess’s tiara is privately owned, decorated with sprigs of orange blossom.”

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It’s a very light and delicate gown that seemed to suit Madeleine well… except for the bodice, which wasn’t fit perfectly and seemed to easily fall off her shoulders. I’m also not a fan of the dust ruffle at the bottom. That all being said, Princess Madeleine showed her traditional and romantic side through the choice of this dress and it suited her beautifully.

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Princess Madeleine anchored her silk organza veil with the Modern Fringe Tiara, a piece privately owned by her mother (read more about it here) but one she has worn often and is closely associated with her.  The bottom of the tiara frame, which sits quite high, was woven with white orange blossoms.

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The couple were attended by bridesmaids and pages in white and spring green ensembles. The bridesmaids wore delicate white floral bandeaux in their hair.

For the evening reception, Madeleine changed into a white Nina Ricci ballgown with pearl covered bodice, sequin dotted tulle skirt and white silk sash. The gown, originally worn by Queen Silvia to the 2001 Nobel Prize ceremony, is the stuff of fairytale princess/bridal dreams and clearly had great sentimental both for Princess Madeleine and her mum. I adore that she wore it as her second wedding dress.

Princess Madeleine has not had an easy path to finding love and her look today was surpassed only by her megawatt smile and radiant happiness. What did you think of her bridal looks?

 Photos from Getty and social media as indicated

Swedish Royal Family Celebrate National Day

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The Swedish Royal Family celebrated national holiday celebrations together in Stockholm yesterday.The women wore traditional Swedish costume and it looked like a marvelous day was had by everyone.

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Princess Madeleine and Christopher O’Neil’s wedding festivities kick off this evening with a black-tie dinner and we’ll see everyone in their glittering wedding finery tomorrow afternoon.  Like the Luxembourg Royal Wedding and the Dutch Inauguration, I’ll  be blogging live and will upload photos as soon as they are available.

Photos from Getty as indicated

Queen Silvia Visits Prince Eugen’s Waldemarsudde

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Last Monday, May 22, Queen Silvia of Sweden attended an annual event for the Association of Friends of the Artists at the Prince Eugen’s Waldemarsudde (an art museum) in Stockholm. She wore a white pillbox hat with side bow and beaded net trim designed by Fabienne Delvigne. It is a great hat on her but I’m just not sure about the glaring contrast between her bright cerise suit and the stark white hat. What do you think?

Photos by Stella Pictures via Svenskdam

Swedish Royal Wedding Banns Read

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Banns for their marriage of Princess Madeleine of Sweden and Christopher O’Neill were published this morning in the Royal Chapel of the Royal Palace in Stockholm. After the service, guests attended a reception at the Royal Palace. Princess Madeleine wore a green satin dress with matching hair bow designed by Pär Engsheden (who designed Crown Princess Victoria’s spectacular wedding dress three years ago). It’s a bit twee for my liking.

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Queen Silvia looked very elegant in a pistachio green pillbox… or so I thought. Belgian hat designer Fabienne Delvigne (who I suspect made this hat) must be trying to start a convertible hat craze because this is the second European monarch this month to wear an open topped hat (see the Grand Duchess Maria Teresa of Luxembourg here). I love everything about this hat on Silvia except the open top.

Crown Princess Victoria was very pretty in pale pink with a large fascinator pinned around her chignon. I wish we had a better view of the fascinator because it looks like it is an exquisitely detailed combination of silk flowers and lace trim. Without a good view, it is difficult to make a fair assessment but I do wonder if this headpiece, which is softly romantic, would look better with a less severe hairstyle.

Chris’ mother Eva O’Neill wore an embellished fez-shaped hat. It’s a unique shape that doesn’t rank among my favourites but paired well with her printed dress. Chris’ sister Tatjana D’Abo wore a tall ivory straw Philip Treacy cloche with huge cabbage rose.

This week, it was announced that the groom respectfully declined a  royal title as he plans to continue his career as an investment consultant in New York. It appears that the couple will have a non-royal life in New York. I suspect, sadly, there will be very few occasions in future where we will see Princess Madeline wear a hat.

**NOTE** several comments about Sofia Hellqvist’s attendance at this event not been approved. Further comments along this topic will also not be approved (consider yourself warned Olivia R.) There’s plenty of other forums and blogs out there where you can discuss this young woman and her relationship with the Royal Family. For the record- all name calling and debate about who should or should not be included in royal events is not welcome here. Let’s keep it to hat love, people!

Photos from Corbis and Stella Pictures