Wedding dress of Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll

The wedding dress of Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll was worn by Princess Louise, Queen Victoria's sixth child and fourth daughter. She married the Marquis of Lorne, the heir to the 8th Duke of Argyll, on 21 March 1871, three days after her twenty-third birthday, at St. George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle.

Louise wore a white silk wedding gown, heavily decorated with national and royal symbols, with deep flounces of flower-strewn Honiton lace, and a short wedding veil of Honiton lace that she designed herself and was held in place by two diamond daisy hair pins presented by her siblings, Princes Arthur and Leopold and Princess Beatrice. The hair pins were supplied by Garrard.

The tulip brooches are now the property of Princess Michael of Kent, [1] whose husband received them as a legacy from his mother HRH Princess Marina, who may have received them from Princess Louise as a gift.[2]

A beautiful bracelet was a present from her fiancé. The centre could be worn as a pendant ornament, with a large and fine sapphire mounted with brilliants and pearls and pearl drop. Princess Louise wore this pendant on a diamond necklace on her wedding day, and it can be seen in her wedding photographs. It was also supplied by Garrard.

Notes

  1. http://madhattery.royalroundup.com/2011/07/albert-and-charlenes-reception-hrh-princess-michael-of-kent/
  2. Robert Wilson. The Life and Times of Queen Victoria. Cassell & Company, limited, 1887. pg 407-409.