Thursday, April 26, 2012

Random Royal Appreciation: A Luxembourg Tiara Sighting (and an Engagement!)

The Grand Duke and Grand Duchess of Luxembourg, accompanied by their son the Hereditary Grand Duke, have been in Germany for a state visit, where they did typical state visiting things.
Some outfits worn while doing the state visiting things
While you recover from the amazing thoroughness of my event reporting, I'll get to the point: there was a state banquet. A state banquet with tiaras and Elie Saab, also known as my favorite kind of state banquet.
The Grand Duchess wore a Greek goddess Elie Saab number originally featured here back when the frock walked the runway. And just for those of us that care, she brought out one of the rarely used Luxembourg tiaras.
This is a petite bandeau of large warm yellow-orange citrine or topaz oval stones separated by arcs of pearls. Interesting combo, no? And it even comes with a matching parure. We don't see this very often - it was last spotted on Maria Teresa's daughter Princess Alexandra on National Day - but it's quite the example of how versatile the Luxembourg collection is. You can see the tiaras that MT's worn (which is not even the whole collection) here.

And then they came home from Germany, and dropped some major royal news: Guillaume is engaged! The Hereditary Grand Duke will marry Countess Stéphanie de Lannoy later this year. Luxarazzi has a lovely bio of our future Hereditary Grand Duchess. The engagement isn't a huge surprise, since Guillaume publicly acknowledged a relationship during interviews for his 30th birthday last November.
Congrats to the happy couple! They have now been added to our roster of upcoming royal weddings, which coincidentally also includes two of Guillaume's cousins.

UPDATE: The couple have met with the press, dignitaries, and family.
With the Grand Duke and Grand Duchess
With Prince Félix (left), Prince Louis and Princess Tessy (right)
And the cute countess showed off her ring!

If Guillaume picked that out, I'm officially, hugely, jealous that she snagged him. Love love love it!

Photos: Wort/Tageblatt/Daylife/Reuters/Profimedia/Cour Grand-Ducale/Christian Aschman