Meghan Markle's Wedding Tiara

[Terri Terri]

I have to disagree with you. I think it is entirely possible that the origins of the stones on some of the older pieces may not be known. Quite a lot was acquired by Queen Mary, and a large stash came from Mrs Greville. The original provenance of some of the jewellery may well be a mystery to the palace as well.

That may be true. But in this instance, where that tiara would be subject to massive media coverage from the entire world, I doubt a tiara of unknown provenance would have been one of the options provided to Meghan.

 

[AlowVera]

Don't think the article is true. The Queen wears other pieces which originate from Russia like the Vladimir tiara frequently so i don't see this as a Problem.

The Queen is the one who offered a selection of tiaras. Meghan did not have the keys to the vault to pick any tiara she wanted. So if the origin of the tiara was in question then why was it offered as a choice? Something is not adding up. Also these tiaras have been in the vault for years and yet they don't know where the tiara originates from yet they offer it up as a choice? Its not adding up.

 

[AlowVera]

Whilst Meghan didn't have jewels like royal jewels level, she could've had emeralds if they were her thing. She's certainly not shied away from purchasing Cartier pieces for herself. I'm sure she can afford some emeralds if she wanted emeralds.

BTW, Diana had emeralds in her jewelry collection. I'm sure Harry would've gifted those to his wife first if she really LOVED emeralds that much.

She has never worn emeralds in the past. Her style of jewlery has always been minimalist with a focus on understated.

 

[Leopoldine]

It's a weird and ridiculous story, any way you look at it. Even putting to one side everything we have observed about Meghan and Harry--Meghan at least has never shown any signs of being the tantrumy type and we would surely have heard about it if she were--It's highly unlikely that Her Majesty had not given some thought to which tiaras she was willing to make available to loan. The Queen is interested in and knowledgable about all her jewels. My best guess would be that either she or someone like Angela Kelly showed Meghan and Harry a preselected group of suitable tiaras and Meghan made her choice from those.

And for those who think this is some kind of slander personally directed at Meghan, once again, Catherine faced the same kind of baseless, made up stories, and so did and do other royal ladies. It's the tabloids trying to get their readers whipped up into a frenzy.

I agree with everything in this post.

I also don't think that HM or Angela Kelly would show Meghan a mysterious emerald tiara and then tell her it is off-limits.

I suppose the provenance of a tiara worn by a royal bride is important, as a tiara with a controversial former owner, or a piece that changed hands long ago in a questionable manner could distract from the wedding itself and possible even snowball into a diplomatic skirmish.

 

[iab]

OK, I've been dying to get a break and post my thoughts, since this morning when I read the story. I strongly believe that the tiara in question is the Sapphire Bandeau, for multiple reasons.
1) the sapphire in the bandeau is interchangeable and Queen Mary also wore the Bandeau with a carved emerald brooch from the delhi durbar parure. I know that journalist wrote 'emeraldS' plural, but I believe that to be a careless mistake. 2) the provenance of this Russian tiara IS a little bit sneaky. No one knows how Russian Empress Marie Feodorovna's tiara fell out of the empress's hands, when it popped up in Europe at an auction where Queen Mary allegedly bought it from Princess Nicholas of Greece (nee Grand Duchess Elena Vladimirovna). The dodginess of this tiara's provenance is very real, as is the fact that has an interchangeable emerald central setting. On the other hand, the Greville Emerald Tiara has very clear provenance, made by Boucheron in 1919 or 1921 for British heiress Lady Granville. As to the Vladimir emerald drop tiara, I think we can all agree by virtue of how much she wears it, that the Queen does not think that the Vladimir tiara is problematic. Also honestly, I cannot imagine Meghan or Harry seeing fit to demand it, and even if they did I do not think that the Queen would use provenance as an excuse for her refusing it. 3) Lastly, the filigree bandeau that Meghan wore and the Sapphire/Emerald bandeau are actually quite stylistically similar to my eyes.
Now as to why I believe the story about a tiara conflict in general:
1) Harry was with Meghan when she picked out the filigree bandeau, even admitting that "he shouldn't have been there". That he was there because of a kerfuffle and wanted to see through that Meghan ultimately got to pick out a (second choice) tiara that she liked goes a long way to explaining his self-admittedly highly unusual presence. 2) as I said, the filigree bandeau that Meghan wore and the Sapphire/Emerald bandeau are actually quite stylistically similar to my eyes. It is very plausible to me that the story is true because this tiara matches the description of what she allegedly wanted as well as what what problematic about it, and it is in keeping with the style of what she ultimately went with. Both are bandeaus of similar profiles, with geometric art deco designs emanating from a central brooch element. Plus, as someone else here commented earlier, the color palette of this wedding was exclusively white and green 3) Lainey Gossip, which is well connected to Meghan's camp and is also known in the gossip/entertainment industry for rarely ever getting it wrong, has thrown its weight behind this story. I highly recommend reading her post (and the other posts she linked within it) from today
(PS: Hi, Long time lurker making my first post!!! I am going to be posting up a storm over the next week of long pent up royal and aristocratic tiara discoveries and questions!)

I don't think that Meghan and Harry would be foolish enough to even contemplate the Grand Duchess Vladimir Tiara let alone Harry "hitting the roof" when told that the Vladmir was off limits.

My initial thought was that the tiara in question was the Queen Mary's Sapphire Bandeau tiara and they got the stone wrong, that tiara does have a questionable chain of ownership. When I had that thought it also popped in my mind that blue was a part of the color scheme but I went back and looked at the pictures and green seem to be the accent color.

Regarding the credibility of the article, Harry's is not above getting litigious, so I am going to wait and see if he (or Meghan) files an IPSO complaint.

 

[iab]

if it were you (or any of us!) though, don't you think that would have started researching what the tiara options were before TQ had even gotten as far as planning the tiara selection appointment yet? Meghan to me seems like someone who does her homework, who would go into a decision like this having already read up on the history, and in-action photos, of all the options. The way I which I could envision this stor holding water is if Meghan was trying to get a head start (or was jumping the gun, depending on your view of it) on the wedding and style planning, and found the sapphire/emerald bandeau on her own. To be sure, it would be gutsy to ask 'ok these are all pretty but what about this other one that I know about?", but if she was told she would have the opportunity to select from tiaras not regularly worn by other members of the family, she could have assumed it would a choice and was wondering if it was a valid option. Then I guess she disagreed with the reason given for it being ruled out. Again, I don't know if I would have had the guts to press for it, but I'll never been in the queen's vault.

I agree with everything in this post.

I also don't think that HM or Angela Kelly would show Meghan a mysterious emerald tiara and then tell her it is off-limits.

I suppose the provenance of a tiara worn by a royal bride is important, as a tiara with a controversial former owner, or a piece that changed hands long ago in a questionable manner could distract from the wedding itself and possible even snowball into a diplomatic skirmish.

 

[Leopoldine]

This might be very naïve of me, but do you think perhaps that Meghan had access to - say a binder of photos of HM's tiaras, and a few of the pages had post-it markers indicating that HM thought they were appropriate, but Meghan saw something in another chapter?


By the way, if such a binder existed, it would be my favorite book of all time.

 

[tommy100]

As much as I'm not Meghan's biggest fan, I really don't think this article is true. Everything we have heard suggests the bride-to-be is given a choice to select from and I don't see Angela Kelly or the Queen offering a tiara that wasn't a real option to wear.

It may well be that Meghan had seen pictures of other tiaras, maybe even seen one she wanted to wear, but I can't see her kicking up a fuss to anyone who may report it back to the Queen. She is too clever for that.

 

[Pranter]

We have heard Harry telling us how it went down....I think we can safely say the entire article is rubbish.


LaRae

 

[Queen Claude]

I mentioned in a previous discussion that I think that there are catalogs / lookbooks and yeah I so want to get my paws on that book.

The story could be totally fakakta but I did read it as Harry and Meghan had a tiara in mind, inquired about it, was told no, Harry threw a fit and the Queen let Harry know that Meghan will wear a tiara selected by the Queen. There is also a comment about the Queen thinking that Meghan needs to "think about how she speaks to staff members" but that sounds like the "well-placed royal insider" was trying to get across that he or she has an issue with how Meghan deals with staff and is putting words in the Queen's mouth, either that or there is a missing part of the story because it looks like the story leaps from Harry being to one hitting the roof, and therefore would be the one needing a talking to, to the Queen being prompted to discuss Meghan's behavior with Harry but not Harry's behavior.

 

[Madame Verseau]

This story is beyond ridiculous. Eugenie got dragged into this because her wedding tiara had emeralds. And the queen shaded Meghan for wearing a veil for her 2nd wedding. Anything to sell books.

 

[AlowVera]

I agree with everything in this post.

I also don't think that HM or Angela Kelly would show Meghan a mysterious emerald tiara and then tell her it is off-limits.

I suppose the provenance of a tiara worn by a royal bride is important, as a tiara with a controversial former owner, or a piece that changed hands long ago in a questionable manner could distract from the wedding itself and possible even snowball into a diplomatic skirmish.

I'm not tiara specialist, but I would think they have every piece archived, I would also think that before giving the bride a choice they would already have researched every piece before giving her a choice. This hatchet piece makes the Queen look undecisive, the palace look amateurish and unorganized and the queen also rather gossipy which is why I think its all fake made up by a petty gossip rag who was the main sponsor for the Markles failed attempt to ruin Meghan.

 

[AlowVera]

This story is beyond ridiculous. Eugenie got dragged into this because her wedding tiara had emeralds. And the queen shaded Meghan for wearing a veil for her 2nd wedding. Anything to sell books.

The main target was to get at Meghan but this makes the palace look amateurish. They apparently don't know where their jewelry comes from....that stuff has been in the vault for decades and never properly archived?? I think not!

 

[O-H Anglophile]

There are so many things in this story that don't seem at all realistic. I really don't think Meghan or Harry ever thought any tiara in the vault was fair game.

I'm sure the Queen had Meghan come to BP to look at and try on tiaras from a pre-selected group of tiaras and Meghan was never given the idea that any tiara was available.

And the Queen would never, ever have dangled an unavailable tiara to anyone. She is not that kind of person.

It is a really stupid story.

 

[Queen Claude]

I think that everything is archived, IIRC Queen Mary took it upon herself to make sure that items in the royal collection were documented. Just because an item is archived/documented does not mean that the provenance is known. For example, Queen Mary could have bought an item from an auction or an intermediary in the 1920s, made sure to document the acquisition to the extent possible but did not have the full details of the history of the item.

 

[Curryong]

Robert Jobson came on Aussie morning TV during the tour (he's a main Royal correspondent of the channel, usually reporting from London) and was quite downbeat about the tour. He sneered about Meghan's 'supposed' (his words) banana bread baking.

All in all I don't think Jobson is a great fan of Meghan's, or of Harry really, though he has written a book about Harry's army career. I do get the impression that this latest bio is extremely admiring of Charles and not so much of either of his sons.

 

[cepe]

This is a wild guess but maybe (somehow) The Vladimir (Russian with emeralds) made its way onto a list or was requested by Meghan.

The problem with ‘provenance’ could refer to the fact that its for use by Monarch/Q consort and therefore not available as a wedding tiara.

It’s a stretch but just an idea. As the report is pretty garbled I could see how there could have been a misunderstanding.

 

[Abbigail]

The source of this story, alone, makes it highly suspect (to say the least). But actually reading it, I can't believe anyone would give it an ounce of credence. What absolute nonsense.

 

[Tarlita]

FYI as some of you are new to these forums and maybe you would like more info about jewels a very good site is RJWMB.
That is royal jewels of the world message board. The photos are excellent and the information is very good. Ladies like Gill W keep data bases on some jewels. Such as how often QEII has worn a certain brooch.
Learning the history behind some of these jewels is fascinating.
At any rate it is a very good site for information.

 

[MARG]

It's just nonsense...I can't believe anyone would believe it.


LaRae

It is total rubbish and us mad, crazy, obsessed and drooling royal jewellery fans know it! This rubbish of Harry running around yelling "what Meghan wants Meghan gets" would be awful if it weren't so funny. This from the man who said even though she is his grandmother, "Her Majesty the Queen" awes him.

Just thinking about the wonders of the vaults. There have been royal scholars that have had a degree of access who did not know all of the wonders of the vaults. Take Queen Alexandra's diamond filigree bandeau. I don't remember it coming up on any wedding or tiara wish lists and it hadn't been seen since 1953 when Queen Mary died. Much the same applied the Sapphire and diamond bandeau last seen on Princess Margaret. We don't know if that is in the vaults either.

Most importantly, we don't know the details of the Greville Bequest. We know about the Bucheron Honeycomb tiara and the double and triple strand diamonds worn together because both the QM and the Duchess of Cornwall have been seen wearing them.

Eugenie's Greville Emerald Kokoshnik seems to be the much speculated about 'mystery 'tiara' that was said to be part of the Bequest, however, neither the QM nor the Queen, who inherited all her mother's jewellery, have been seen wearing it. Hence the Mystery as to if it even existed let alone what it was comprised of. But RJOTW talks about a mystery sapphire tiara as well. So . . .

Since "The Queen's Jewels: The Personal Collection of Elizabeth II: Leslie Field" was first published in 1987 there have been quite a few added between then and now.

The idea that Meghan and Harry got to go for a fossic about in that most magical of places just blows my mind. The scenario that Catherine described choosing her wedding tiara makes much more sense and is more in keeping with HM "style".

 

[Pranter]

IIRC it was on the poll we had here for tiaras we wanted her to wear at her wedding...I'd seen pics of it but only black/white ...it's a gorgeous tiara...and I'm wondering if Meghan will be wearing it on Dec 4th at the Diplomatic event, they all normally wear them there.



LaRae

 

[jacqui24]

This is a wild guess but maybe (somehow) The Vladimir (Russian with emeralds) made its way onto a list or was requested by Meghan.

The problem with ‘provenance’ could refer to the fact that its for use by Monarch/Q consort and therefore not available as a wedding tiara.

It’s a stretch but just an idea. As the report is pretty garbled I could see how there could have been a misunderstanding.

Meghan and Harry have specifically said they went to BP and was presented with a number of specific tiaras to choose from rather than anything by Meghan’s request. So unless somehow HMQ or her aides are incompetent enough to laid out the Vladimir’s tiara with emeralds out, I highly doubt it.

 

[Marlo]

IIRC it was on the poll we had here for tiaras we wanted her to wear at her wedding...I'd seen pics of it but only black/white ...it's a gorgeous tiara...and I'm wondering if Meghan will be wearing it on Dec 4th at the Diplomatic event, they all normally wear them there.



LaRae

I don't think Meghan and Harry will be at the Diplomatic reception.

 

[Pranter]

I don't think Meghan and Harry will be at the Diplomatic reception.

Why wouldn't they be?


LaRae

 

[Marlo]

Why wouldn't they be?


LaRae

Because Harry is not the heir. I vaugely remember some people talked about it. I could be wrong.

 

[jacqui24]

The Diplomatic Reception has been done differently over the years. Even Prince and Princess Michael were invited at one point. And even if you are the heir, doesn’t mean you are invited. The Cambridges didn’t start going until 2013. So, it doesn’t mean it’s always going to be heirs only, and it doesn’t mean Sussexes will go this year, and it also doesn’t mean they won’t in the future if they don’t go this year. We’ll know the day of.

 

[muriel]

Meghan and Harry have specifically said they went to BP and was presented with a number of specific tiaras to choose from rather than anything by Meghan’s request. So unless somehow HMQ or her aides are incompetent enough to laid out the Vladimir’s tiara with emeralds out, I highly doubt it.

I am not suggesting attaching a level of credibility to the Jobson story, but H&M were hardly going to talk about the bride's strop in a voiceover for the exhibition at Windsor.

 

[alvinking]

We don't know if the Sussexes will attend or not, but keep in mind that Prince Harry has been apppointed Commonweath Youth Ambassador so it would not be scandalous or out of place if they were to attend this event
At the Diplomatic Reception the whole Diplomatic Corps to the court of St James is present. The Queen always has enough royals present to entertain all the guests. There is for instance and archive video at one of these reception where Princess Alexandra is chatting an Ambassador of Ghana reminding him, that it was she who represented the Queen at Ghana's Independence Ceremonies in Accra in 1957. And the Ambassador after not being sure maybe he as too young back then finally concur.

 

[muriel]

We don't know if the Sussexes will attend or not, butkeep in mind that Prince Harry has been apppointed Commonweath Youth Ambassador so it would not be scandalous or out of place if they were to attend this event

How has being Commonwealth Youth Ambassador have anything to do with the annual Diplomatic Reception at BP?

 

[MaiaMia_53]

Frankly, the tabloids creating unnecessary tiara drama simply underscores why the brothers and the British royals in general protectively guard their private lives, and are so careful about revealing anything that goes on behind-the-scenes in the palaces. And yet, most of the royals are also very caring, funny and engaging with the people they meet up close and personal at functions and walk-abouts in Britain and on tour.

This silly tiara drama dis-fest I'm not going to bother to read. I'm sure the royals won't give it a second thought. They don't have the time, need, nor energy to spare for worrying about pitiful tabloids and hell-bent journos trying to stir-up imaginary stories and mischaracterizations.