For weeks leading up to Princess Eugenie and Jack Brooksbank‘s wedding, royal watchers have been trying to predict which tiara the bride would wear down the aisle, considering she typically opts to wear whimsical hats in place of the traditional headpiece. While many speculated Eugenie would end up wearing the York Diamond Tiara, which her mother Sarah “Fergie” Ferguson wore at her wedding to Prince Andrew, she instead borrowed something straight from her grandmother the Queen’s collection.
Eugenie accessorized her open-back, long-sleeve Peter Pilotto gown with a stunning diamond and emerald tiara borrowed from the Queen and went without a traditional dramatic veil to instead reveal her back scar from her scoliosis surgery. She wore her hair in a loose chignon created by hairstylist Sonny-Jo MacFarlane, which revealed diamond and emerald drop earrings, a wedding gift from the groom.
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According to Kensington Palace, Eugenie is wearing the Greville Emerald Kokoshnik Tiara, commonly referred to as the Boucheron Tiara, lent to her by the Queen. The tiara was made by Boucheron for Dame Margaret Helen Greville in 1919 in the fashionable “kokoshnik” style popularized in the Russian Imperial Court.
The tiara is made of brilliant and rose cut diamonds pavé set in platinum, with six emeralds on either side. The tiara was bequeathed by Mrs. Greville to Queen Elizabeth in 1942.
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Earlier this year at Meghan Markle and Prince Harry‘s royal wedding, the Duchess of Sussex wore a tiara straight from the Queen’s jewelry vault, the Queen Mary Diamond Bandeau.
According to Kensington Palace, the English tiara, which features diamonds set in platinum, was made in 1932 and features a center detachable brooch made of ten diamonds dating back to 1893.
The tiara is “formed as a flexible band of eleven sections, pierced with interlaced ovals and pavé set with large and small brilliant diamonds.”
For Kate Middleton‘s April 29, 2011, nuptials to Prince William, Kate wore a glittering diamond design straight from Queen Elizabeth II’s personal collection.
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The Queen was given the headpiece as an 18th birthday gift from her mother (the Queen Mother herself was given the tiara by Elizabeth’s father King George VI in 1936).
When Princess Diana married Prince Charles on July 29, 1981, she turned to her own aristocratic family’s archives when it came to selecting her iconic headpiece.
The Spencer Tiara features a combination of different pieces of jewelry that hold special meaning to her family. The central part of the tiara was given as a wedding present to Lady Cynthia Hamilton (Diana’s grandmother) when she married Albert, Viscount Althorp, the future 7th Earl Spencer, in 1919. The topper was given to Cynthia by Albert’s great aunt, Lady Sarah Isabella Spencer, who died later that year.
Following Diana’s wedding, the piece became a popular wedding tiara for the Spencer family: Diana’s sisters – Lady Sarah and Jane, Baroness Fellowes – both wore the sparkler for their wedding days and Victoria Lockwood, who was the first wife of Diana’s brother Charles, the current Earl of Spencer, wore it when she married into the famed aristocratic family in 1989.
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