Can I ask what the little ribbons they ladies are wearing are for? Both Mary and Marie are wearing them during the day and during the gala
When you attend anniversaries of some kind in the military, royal house, or other occasions, it is quite common to receive a commemorative medal for the event. Since Mary and Marie are wearing the same medal, I highly suspect that this is such a medal.
Why is there such a negative and cruel attitude toward Marie. She has only been a princess for a few weeks. Just look back at Mary's and earlier also Diana's first years and you will find disasters - lots of them. No need to tear her apart. There are many positive ways to look at a young newlywed woman trying to find her style. She has the inborn french "chicness" (probably not such a word) that no other countries women can match. She'll be just fabulous as time goes by.
I feel that the administrators should encourage a civil tone on these boards and not be the voice of constant negativity.
As I've been one to voice a negative opinion on the last outfit, but been very positive on a lot of the ones before, I'd like to add something to GlitteringTiaras' excellent comment.
I do understand what you're saying, but I don't think Marie is being torn apart. Plain and simple.
Previous in this thread you will find plenty of people liking her style, and plenty of people disliking it. That's human. To me there seems to be a balance between the positive and the negative, people are expressing themselves in civil tones and not using crass language, and most of us are not just saying negative things to be negative (or positive things to be positive, for that matter), but it actually has a basis in something that we've seen her wear. And, yes, for some there will always be negativity, or positivity regardless of the evidence, but one can hope that most of us will look at the evidence prior to making our mind up.
The problems arise when the debate becomes so one-sided that people cannot post their opinions on something because the general consensus has decided that everything this princess does is wonderful, or everything she does is tragic, and all other opinions are shunned and the posters feel excluded.
To me, Marie is a fascinating entity - because I'm able to follow the whole process of becoming "princessified". I like her, as I like Mette-Marit, Victoria, Laurentien, Claire & Mathilde - but that does not mean that I am blind to their faults or turn the other way around when they are wearing something less than fortunate. I'm not looking for the perfect princess, but watching a human adapt to living in, or being, an institution.
And to conclude, I do think she'll be fabulous as time goes by as you say, because she has already shown me - via her outfits prior to marriage, the wedding dress, the dress at the French embassy, the dress at the wedding in Geneva (which I liked, also for an informal summer wedding of friends, even if few others thought it appropriate) and the dress for the concert in Tivoli, which all looked quite good to me.