A Bridal Tiara for Princess Alix?

This summer will see the wedding of Princess Alix de Ligne and Count Guillaume de Dampierre. And one intriguing question that arises before any aristocratic wedding is: Will the bride wear a tiara, and which tiara will that be?

It’s not likely that Princess Alix de Ligne will wear the Chaumet tiara which she presents in the pictures below, at the International Evening of the Child Gala at Versailles, France, in 2006. This bandeau in a spider web design is not a family tiara but a jewel marketed by the French jewelry house of Chaumet.

The Princess’s mother, Brazilian Princess Eleonora de Orleans e Braganca, did not wear a tiara on her own wedding, but fastened her veil with the help of a headdress of orange blossoms.

A look at the bride’s grand-mother and namesake, Princess Alix of Luxembourg, probably won’t help to answer this question either. At her wedding to Prince Antoine de Ligne in 1950 she wore a tiara from the Grand Ducal family of Luxembourg: the same vine-leaves tiara that Countess Stéphanie de Lannoy famously wore at the pre-wedding festivities on the eve of the day she became Hereditary Grand Duchess of Luxembourg.

But there is, or was, one de Ligne tiara that has a tradition as bridal tiara in the de Ligne family. The bandeau style diamond tiara with a prominent center piece, was already worn by Princess Yolande de Ligne, who is a great-aunt of Princess Alix. The princess wore the tiara during her wedding to Archduke Carl Ludwig of Austria in 1950.

More than two decades later it was worn by some of her aunts. In 1976 it was Countess Marguerite de Renesse who wore this jewel on the day she married Prince Wauthier de Ligne.

The next known wearer was Princess Christine de Ligne who married D. António de Orleans e Braganca, Prince of Brazil, in 1981.

In 1982 Princess Sophie de Linge married Count Philippe de Nicolay, and although the pictures from her wedding are not very clear, it looks like she too is wearing this family heirloom.

After that the tiara was not seen in public for a long time, not even when Prince Philippe de Ligne, son of Prince Wauthier and Princess Marguerite, married Laetitia Rolin in 2008. The bride had obviously borrowed a diamond tiara from the Counts of Limburg-Stirum, who are her husband’s maternal relatives.

But then the Ligne bandeau reappeared when it graced the head of Princess Melanie de Ligne, when she married Paul Weingarten in 2011. Prince Philippe and Princess Melanie are siblings and first cousin of this year’s bride, Princess Alix.

So Princess Alix, too, might choose to wear this heirloom from her father’s family. Or will she choose to wear the same tiara as her maternal cousin Amélia of Brazil wore in 2014? After all Princess Alix is still in the line of the Brazilian succession, she and her fiancé live and work in Brazil, and she is very close to her Brazilian relatives. Last not least, this tiara is rumored to be of de Ligne origin.

So the question remains: What will the bride wear?

Filed under Belgium
Tagged House of Ligne, Princess Alix de Ligne, Tiaras, Wedding.