Before King Charles III, Queen Camilla (formerly known as Camilla Parker Bowles) was married to her first husband Andrew Parker Bowles.
Andrew and Camilla had a large society wedding, and for the affair the bride wore an expensive accessory that some thought they would see again when she and Charles tied the knot. However, she chose not to wear it and no one knows exactly why. Here’s more on that accessory and if Camilla has worn it since.
Camilla donned a $250,000 tiara when she married Andrew Parker Bowles
Camilla and Andrew wed on July 4, 1973. Despite reports that then-Prince Charles was heartbroken when his ex married someone else, a few members of his family attended the wedding including his sister Princess Anne and his aunt Princess Margaret.
Although Camilla’s first wedding wasn’t a royal affair, she wore a tiara. The sparkling headpiece called the Cubitt-Shand Tiara was passed down in her family. It originally belonged to Camilla’s grandmother, Sonia Keppel (later Sonia Rosemary Cubitt). Sonia’s mother was Alice Keppel, who is known in history as the last mistress of King Edward VII.
The tiara is estimated to be worth upwards of $250,000.
Before divorcing in 1995, Camilla and Andrew had two children Tom Parker Bowles and Laura Lopes. Their daughter wore the Cubitt-Shand Tiara for her 2006 nuptials.
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What Queen Camilla wore instead of a tiara when she married King Charles
Instead of wearing a tiara on her head for her nuptials to the future king, Camilla selected two other options that day.
For the pair’s civil ceremony at The Guildhall, Windsor, on April 9, 2005, she sported a Philip Treacy wide-brimmed ivory hat. And for the Service of Prayer and Dedication Blessing that followed at St. George’s Chapel, she donned a striking gold headpiece also by Philip Treacy.
There are a few theories about Camilla did not wear her family’s tiara like other royal brides do. Some believe the reason is due to the fact that the now-king and queen had a civil ceremony. Express noted that another reason could be because wearing diadems at second weddings isn’t that common for divorced royal brides.
Meghan Markle, who was also a divorcee, did wear one for her second wedding when she married Prince Harry. However, Camilla took a page out of Princess Anne’s book and opted not to wear the accessory when marrying her second husband. The princess donned Queen Mary’s Russian Fringe tiara, the same headpiece her mother wore when she married her father in 1952, for her first wedding to Mark Phillips. But she did not wear one when she walked down the aisle with Vice Admiral Timothy Laurence in 1992.
As for Camilla’s Cubitt-Shand Tiara, she has worn it several times since joining the royal family including to two diplomatic receptions at Buckingham Palace and a dinner at the Royal Academy of the Arts in June 2015.
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