King Carl Gustaf of Sweden and Silvia Sommerlath: June 19, 1976


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It's still not my favorite dress, but I picked up some interesting tidbits from the SVT documentary on royal wedding dresses. Fair warning: the video is in Swedish and while I was able to get English sub-titles, there's a chance that something got lost in translation.

Silvia said that she when they were planning the wedding, she went to spend a weekend in Copenhagen as the guest of Queen Ingrid. There, they looked over dress sketches together and picking out the Christian Dior dress that she ultimately wore.

What really blew my mind, though, is that they used the train from Princess Birgitta's dress instead of the one originally supplied by Dior. Silvia wanted something from Märtaskolan since they made the dresses worn by Carl Gustaf's sisters, but the dressmaker had closed permanently a year before. So Silvia had the train from Birgitta's dress (also worn by Princess Desiree) added onto her gown. I still don't like the gown, but the sentimental gesture of using the train softens my dislike a bit. Can you imagine what she would have been able to wear if Märtaskolan had made her dress? :ermm:
 
Thanks for this pictures. Grand Duchess Josephine Charlotte was one of the very last Royal by blood.
 
Thanks for this pictures. Grand Duchess Josephine Charlotte was one of the very last Royal by blood.

Her brother is still alive :D

How would you define 'royal by blood' - how many generations of 'what exactly' are required?

As it is clear that with each generation there will be fewer royals with two royal parents (whose parents were also royals etc); it would be an interesting exercise (not for this topic though) to identify all remaining (European) 'royals by blood' but to do so we would need to agree on the criteria.
 
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King Carl XVI Gustaf and Silvia's wedding was the first wedding for a sitting monarch in Sweden since 1797 when Princess Frederica of Baden married King Gustav IV Adolph.
 
I still remember it, I was so impressed by the beauty of the bride and by the ceremony itself !
 
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