

When Crown Prince Pavlos of Greece, Prince of Denmark, married Marie-Chantal Miller on July 1, 1995, the event was a family affair. Because of the Greek royal family’s close relations to several other royal houses, that also made it a major royal event. Here is a look at the hats worn at this wedding by members of the couple’s families.
Queen Anne-Marie topped her sea foam green silk coat with a straw headpiece in the same hue. With an open top, the headpiece wrapped in a circle around her head and was trimmed with a wide straw ribbon tails on the side.


Princess Alexia wore a wide brimmed hat in natural straw while Princess Theodora, as bridesmaid, wore a floral wreath in her hair. Both Alexia and and Queen Anne-Marie were dressed by London-based Austrian designer Inge Spronson.

The mother of the bride, Chantal Miller, matched Queen Anne-Marie’s ensemble in a hat and dress in sea foam green topped by a pale peach hand embroidered and beaded Valentino couture coat. The hat followed the shape of a ruched turban at the back but was brimmed with a halo brim around the front that framed Mrs. Miller’s face. Trimmed with a stylized silk flower, the chic hat has a wonderful sense of movement that almost draws my attention away from her pearls.

Princess Marie-Chantal’s two sisters, Alexandra Miller and Pia Getty wore what I suspect were very fashion-forward hats for the time. Pia’s round burgundy percher hat was edged in scalloped pink ribbon and trimmed with a spray of pink and burgundy feathers at the back. While this hat shape is familiar to us now, it was a very avant garde millinery look 20 years ago that left me wondering at the time if she had stuck a cushion on her head. Alexandra toped her blue suit with what can only be described as a pink headscarf, worn as a headband and loosely tied in a bow behind her ear. This headpiece (if you can call it that) has always left me scratching my own head.


Looking at the groom’s extended family- Queen Anne-Marie’s sister, Princess Benedikte of Denmark (above, right) wore a large rose pink hat with high ‘slice’ brim that folded up over the square crown on one side. We see these ‘slice’ brim picture hats often these days but I suspect it turned heads at the time. Their mother, Queen Ingrid of Denmark, wore a memorable hat in sky blue. With a traditional round crown, the brim of the hat was wider around the front and folded up to frame Queen Ingrid’s face. The straw was light embroidered in monochrome blue vines and embellished with a small spray of flowers at the side. We seldom see patterned royal hats and this one still stands out in my mind as a unique piece.

Queen Margrethe, the eldest of Queen Ingrid’s three daughters, also wore an unusual and distinctive hat. Her headpiece, in steely blue straw, featured a large disc atop a calot base. The disc was sliced to the radius at the top of the headpiece- a large bow was placed in the slice, leaving one side of the bow visible on top of the hat and the other, behind the back of it (which also curled up that side of the disc). A spray of silk violets completed the striking hat.

While King Constantine’s sister, Queen Sofia of Spain, did not wear a hat, her daughters Infanta Elena and Infanta Christina both topped their dress suits with simple cream picture hats.
