How British Royal Brides Nailed the Wedding Day Tiara

The marriage of then-Princess Elizabeth to Prince Philip on Nov. 20, 1947, was the biggest royal wedding Britain had known in decades. The bride was a monarch in waiting, saying "I do" in the ancient and very royal setting of Westminster Abbey, and needed a spectacular tiara to set off her wedding look. But Elizabeth also wanted something with a very personal touch.

She settled on a fringe tiara belonging to her own mother, then-Queen Elizabeth and later queen mother, which had been created by Garrards in the Russian kokoshnik style. It contained 47 bars of diamonds, but as well as the carat count, it was filled with plenty of history and sentiment, too, as the tiara had begun life as a diamond necklace given to the bride's beloved paternal grandmother, Queen Mary, for her own wedding. And the person who handed it over to Mary was none other than Queen Victoria herself.

The tiara famously broke as Elizabeth was getting ready for her wedding and had to be driven at high speed across London for a quick repair. The queen mother told her daughter not to worry as "we have two hours and there are other tiaras." Given the extent of the royal family's jewelry collection, that has to be the royal wedding understatement of the century. The sparkler, known now as the Queen Mary Fringe Tiara, was patched up in time and took a starring role in this very famous royal event.

Princess Margaret might have referred to herself as "the spare" for much of her life, but when it came to royal wedding bling, there was no way the queen's little sister was going to be outshone. For her marriage to Antony Armstrong-Jones at Westminster Abbey on May 6, 1960, Margaret wore the stunning Poltimore tiara. Never mind something borrowed, it seems this was the ultimate wedding day gift to herself.

Margaret acquired the tiara in 1959 when it came up for auction. No one is quite sure who handed over the cash, but it has long been rumored that the princess purchased it herself. It was made in the 1870s for Florence, Lady Poltimore, and in 1911, her daughter-in-law wore it at the coronation of King George V.

This tiara is actually a closed circlet of diamonds, and it can also be broken down into a necklace and brooches, just to keep things practical. It dazzled everyone when Margaret debuted it on her wedding day, and it was sold at auction for almost £1 million after her death.

Perhaps the most unusual tiara among the Windsor wedding collection is the one worn by Sophie Rhys-Jones when she wed Prince Edward on June 19, 1999, at St. George's Chapel, Windsor. Although it's now a go-to piece for the Countess of Wessex, no one had seen it before her big day, and even now, no one is completely sure where all those diamonds came from.

We do know that the gem-encrusted scroll work pieces originated in the queen's collection, but that's a mighty big set of stones to pick from. A popular theory is that the diamonds in Sophie's tiara were once part of the set of jewels made for Queen Victoria's regal circlet, which would make this a very royal wedding tiara, indeed.

Whatever their beginnings, they were fashioned into a tiara for Sophie by royal jewelers Asprey and Garrard (now Garrard and Co), and the finished piece consists of a set of diamond ornaments brought together in a traditional diadem design. This piece is as original and stylish as the bride who wore it.

The Windsors might have centuries of diamonds for brides to choose from, but when the queen's eldest granddaughter, Zara Phillips, got married, she picked a tiara with its origins in another royal family for her wedding day look. Zara, who married Mike Tindall on July 30, 2011, at Canongate Kirk in Edinburgh, chose a diadem that had once belonged to the Greek royals.

Zara borrowed the Greek Meander Tiara from her mom, Princess Anne, who had actually been given it by her own mother, the queen, in 1972. However, it first belonged to Princess Alice, the mother of the Duke of Edinburgh.

Alice was born at Windsor Castle, but after her marriage to Prince Andrew of Greece, she made her home in Athens. This tiara was one of her princess pieces there, and it features a Greek key design, made up completely of diamonds, as well as a central laurel wreath. Zara's decision to pay tribute to her grandfather's family was a sweet and stylish addition to her standout wedding day look.

We were hoping Meghan might surprise us with her wedding day tiara choice, and that's just what she did when she arrived at St. George's Chapel, Windsor, on May 19, 2018, in a gem that hadn't been seen in decades. The new Duchess of Sussex said "I do" in a bandeau tiara that once belonged to that royal jewelry supremo, Queen Mary.

The tiara was made in 1932 for Mary, who was always eager to update her gem collection. She commissioned this piece specifically to show off the large, circular, diamond brooch that now sits at its center — she had received it as a present from the people of the County of Lincoln on her own wedding day in 1893. The brooch had been bought after the local lord lieutenant invited people to send in money for a marriage present for the royal bride.

Forty years on, Mary decided it would look much better in a tiara and had it set in a very 1930s piece made up of diamonds in a pavé setting on platinum with clusters of larger diamonds on either end of the tiara. The diadem was left to the queen on Mary's death in 1953 and wasn't seen again until Meghan's wedding on May 19. And just to show she really is part of the royal family now, her new grandmother-in-law wore another of Mary's wedding present brooches to the Sussex celebrations. That's what you call a happy ending.

This might actually be the most standout royal wedding tiara of them all. Princess Eugenie of York surprised everyone by wearing emeralds on her big day, and what a set of stones they are.

The latest royal bride chose the Greville Emerald Kokoshnik for her wedding at St. George's Chapel, Windsor on Oct. 12, 2018. It's been part of the Windsor collection since 1942, when it was left to the family by the wealthy society hostess Margaret Greville. Her gems were bequeathed to the queen mother, and on her death, they came to the queen.

The tiara was made in 1921 for Margaret, who entrusted the job to the jewelers Boucheron. The diadem, like many others at the time, was designed to look like the traditional Russian headdress, the kokoshnik, and it features hundreds of pavé diamonds set in platinum. But it's the emeralds that really make this piece stand out. That central stone is over 90 carats, while there are six smaller green gems on either side of the tiara.

That green matched Eugenie's color scheme to perfection, and just to make this whole bridal look even more perfect, her new husband, Jack Brooksbank, gave her the pair of diamond and emerald drop earrings that she also wore at their marriage.