This is for all of the requests we get for more coverage of the royal families of the smaller European countries, beyond the UK. Here are some photos of Luxembourg’s Prince Felix and Princess Claire, and the newest addition to the Luxembourg royal house, Princess Amalia Gabriela Maria Teresa of Nassau. She was born on June 15th, this past Sunday. She was born at the Grand-Duchesse Charlotte Maternity Wing at the Centre Hospitalier de Luxembourg. Thoughts on the name? I’ve always liked the name “Amelia” and I guess “Amalia” is the Germanic version. I would love it if they called her Princess Amy.
I actually covered Felix and Claire’s wedding photos last September – go here to reminisce. The bride wore a lovely Elie Saab gown to her church wedding in France, which came after a quiet civil ceremony in her home country of Germany. She was a doctorate student at the time… I don’t know if she’s got her PhD now (but she for sure has her MRS and HRH). It’s worth noting that they got married on September 21. And the baby came on June 15th. So… she was either like a couple of weeks pregnant when they got married or Princess Amalia was a honeymoon baby that came early. Either way, congrats! Look at Princess Amalia’s little ruffled pink dress!
Felix is the second son of Grand Duke Henri and Grand Duchess Maria Teresa and he will never be Grand Duke – his older brother (?) has kids already. Don’t ask me anything else about this royal family because I have no idea! I look forward to being schooled on all things Luxembourg in the comments.
Photos courtesy of Getty, WENN.
There’s a latin connection in this family. Felix’s mother, Maria Teresa, is Cuban, nee Maria Teresa Mestre.
Who cares? These people are ultimately, inconsequential. Monarchies are a freakin joke!
They look sooo fresh.
My thought too!
Fresh and genuinely happy.
Good god, that woman is stunning. That bone structure!!
This! My God, that’s a gorgeous family!
The Luxembourgs are often seen at royal gatherings. For a small country they are well connected. Grand Duchess Josephine (Felix’s grandmother) was a Belgian princess–sister of the recently abdicated Albert II. Josephine’s mother was the legendary Queen Astrid, the Diana of her day who perished young in an auto accident. Astrid was a Swedish princess and aunt of King Harald of Norway and also related to the Danish royals. Through Felix’s great grandfather (also Felix) he is related to the Danes, Austrians, Bulgarians and Bourbon Parmas. There’s a distant Coburg connection to the British royal family as well.
The Luxembourgs always attend the major formal family functions at the Danish court. They have some nice jewellery too. I love the floral tiara that she wore at her wedding. I wonder if it is one of the royal ones or iof her family has their own family tiara?
She is certainly very well educated, which is cool.
And that baby is soo cute and tiny!
Thanks for covering other European royal families. It is nice with a bit of variety and the us royaloonies can talk about something else than the usual topics of Kate’s clothes, hair, etc., which is getting boring.
Claire wore the Luxembourg vine tiara which previously belonged to Grand Duchess Charlotte. It then went to Grand Duchess Josephine Charlotte then to Grand Duchess Maria Teresa. Of the 3 only MT has worn it often. It’s made of white diamonds set in yellow gold and silver. It’s previously been lent out to other brides but will stay permanently with the reigning or consort Grand Duchess as it is part of the family foundation. (Which many of the other royal families have and i wish the BRF did because they have lost and will continue to lose ma y valuable, lovely and historic pieces)The piece dates back to the mid-1800s and is convertible to a necklace and has removable pieces to create multiple brooches.
Thank you for the information! It is a lovely piece and I must admit to a fondness for floral tiaras. The Mellorio Floral Tiara from the Spanish RF is stunning, and CP Mary’s ruby-diamond floral tiara as well as Queen Margrethe’s Floral Aigrette Tiara are other favorites of mine. Princess Marie of Denmark also has use of a very beautiful floral tiara.
The BRF has an amazing tiara collection but many are just too big for my personal taste. I really like the Spanish Mellorio Shell Tiara. It is beautiful and very unusual and Queen Sophia wears it really well.
Everybody’s pretty! Congrats!
LOLz! Best comment ever.
She looks sooo precious and tiny, probably was born a bit early! Love that they published pics one and two days respectively after the princess was born. Great PR!
Anyway, you want some schooling? 🙂 Prince Felix’s younger brother Louis already has kids (two sons) but his older brother Guillaume, the Hereditary Grand Duke, and his wife Stephanie don’t.
I don’t know why, but the smaller country royals so often get it right where the British royals go wrong. Look at the Danish, Dutch & Swedish royals – ALWAYS working, always bringing out the tiaras and forever releasing darling and fresh family photos – even with their shoes off! QEII does alright, but the young ones should take lessons on how to be a popular young royal family from some of their peers!
I wonder if part of it is because these smaller nations tend to be homogenous. I also remember seeing something on Luxembourg how the Prince of Lucembourg put his family on the referendum to do away with the monarchy decades and decades ago and everyone wanted them to remain so it has never come up again. I am sure someone more educated in this topic can explain it better though.
This guy is hot hot and his wife is very pretty too. Cute baby.
I think that it has something to do with the BRF in particular. They have always cultivated the remoteness, and I sometimes get the feeling that the BRF and the court is caught in a kind of time pocket due to the age of the Queen and her husband. They were young in the 1940s and 50s and it can be hard to change with the times, especially in such a closed environment as the BRF.
It was the same in Denmark in the 1930s where the remote and rather unpopular King Christian X ran a strict and closed court. There came a thaw when Ingrid of Sweden came into the family – she seemed to have had a natural flair for PR and exerted a gentle but important influence on the DRF. It was during her period that the DRF became more accessible – with the release of private photos, biking around the streets of Copenhagen, etc. The unpopular Christian X regained a lot of goodwill when he started riding the streets of Copenhagen every day during the German occupation from 1940-45. He was incredibly unpopular early in his reign when he tried to disband the government in 1920 – it was perhaps the closets that Denmark ever came to becoming a republic! However, at the end of his reign he had become immensely popular (mainly because of his behaviour during the occupation – he didn’t endear himself to the Nazis by threathening to wear the yellow star if they wanted to impose it on the Jewish citizens and he apparently pissed of Hitler by sending the man a very terse birthday message during the occupation).
Regardless, the DRF has continued the trend that Queen Ingrid started and they emply a very competent and professional PR chief – and that has given very good results.
The Swedes are also quite open. The Swedish king isn’t too popular, which is due to the fact that he sometimes meddles in political debates that he has no business meddling in, but CP Victoria is immensely popular: her birthday is a national holiday! I also like that she takes out her young daughter on select official appearances (something that they do in Denmark as well – to make the children comfortable with the public interest and their future roles). When Victoria battled with anorexia, the Swedish court actually disclosed her condition in a press release and asked for the press to leave her alone so she could get better without the extra media pressure. It is my understanding that the Swedish RF was relatively successful in this strategy.
I do think that the openness is rather crucial for the future survival of the constitutional monarchies – the people needs to relate to the royals not just as head of state but also as people in order to acheive that emotional investment in them as national symbols. It is a tricky business – they can’t become too accessible, too much like celebrities, and they have to work to earn the respect of their countrymen. But it is also important that there is a sense of a spectacle out-of-the-ordinary – because we also want the glamour – the tiaras, gowns, uniforms, etc. So I love that the Danish and Swedish RFs have quite a few tiara events. The New Year banquet in Denmark and the Nobel Dinner in Sweden, to name a few examples.
Thanks for that very interesting read, Art Historian. I really enjoyed that 🙂
I never knew all these people existed until reading CB. There are boxes and boxes of princes and princes to unpack, shipped from the around the world.
LOL. seriously.
LOL
May i recommend the royal order of sartorial splendor blog where you learn about all these royals whilst looking at amazing jewels.
adorable little munchkin – congrats to them! (one of my closest friends just had a baby yesterday, so i am on a total baby high, lol.)
He is eye candy in my favorite flavor! Congrats to the parents and family on the beautiful baby!
That baby is so tiny and darling. Gorgeous family. Princess Claire looks fantastic. Two days after I had my first baby, I could’ve been cast in Dawn of the Dead.
Lovely couple.
Princess Amy? That’s quite vulgar.
Pourquoi?
Felix has an older brother Guillaume, who is married but doesnt have kids.
I didn’t think he had kids — Gui’s marriage was always a bit odd to me. It seemed arranged, very old-school, marrying a titled girl who is probably a cousin.
It’s similar to the marriage in Belgium of Philippe and Mathilde, which everyone assumed was arranged. Those two have always been pretty hot for each other, though, so either it wasn’t or it was and has worked out well.
All see is that precious, sweet, little baby girl. What a darling!
What a gorgeous little family – the baby is absolutely precious, bless her, adorable.
2nd look. What a little thing she is! So tiny like a doll.
I know, especially in that first picture! Sooo tiny and perfect.
Congratulations!
His older brother, Guillaume, is childless. You’re thinking of one of his younger brothers, Louis, who has two sons.
Cute tiny baby, Claire looks great and I love the name. Yay for more royal families coverage! Others royal families besides working much more also have many more galas and tiara events than the brits, for example Stephanie of Luxembourg in her first year of marriage had 6 tiaras events and the Swedish, Dutch and Danish gave just as many(Kate had one in over 3years and the event was closed to press).
I never understood why that tiara event was closed to the press – it is great PR for the RF. A televised spectacle like the annual New Years banquet in Denmark is always very popular precisely because we get to see the RF in all their glory (tiaras and gowns) as well as all the politicians and foreign diplomats. It is good fun, and it makes the RF more visible.
I believe that if ‘tiara events’ were to ever be televised in the uk , the brf would take flak for being ‘wasteful’ or ‘useless’ . The scandals of the past 25+ yrs have done major damage to the windsors’ name , despite QEII’s popularity.
If you really want to know about the Royals of the other nations, The Royal Order of Sartorial Splendor is a GREAT website. She’s very knowledgeable and bonus! tons of Royal fashion and SPARKLY JEWELS!!!
http://orderofsplendor.blogspot.com/
That is a great site. I love the Tiara Thursdays, where you really learn a lot about the history of many gorgeous royal pieces of jewellery.
I always check The Royal Order of Sartorial Splendor. Not only did I learn many things about other European Royals because of this amazing site, I get to read about the tiaras and other glamorous stuff that each royal family can deliver. If you want to learn more about Luxembourg and Liechtenstein royals, also check out LUXARAZZI, a blog which exclusively features the two nations.
http://lux-arazzi.blogspot.com/
What a precious little one. I love the little dress Princess Amalia
is wearing. They look so authentically happy. Best wishes for
a healthy and happy life for this little peanut. Gorgeous family!
Cute little baby
The other royal families such as Luxembourg certainly do have their share of gossip worthy stories even if they don’t have the name recognition of the BRF or Monaco. You can look up some of them just on the current family–mother-in-law issues (which spilled into the press), illegitimate children , teen romances, etc….And, like their Scandinavian relations, really have the jewelry porn. Just look up the Tiara of Grand Duchess Elizabeth Mikhailovna which the family still wears. It’s immense! Or look up Prince Carl Phillip of Sweden’s girlfriend, the drama over Mette-Marit in Norway (not the single mother issue) , Princess Martha Louise New Ageiness, The King of Sweden’s love of strippers, the former King of The Belgians illegitimate child, the situation with Prince Laurent of the Belgians, some of the past Dutch scandals, or how many people really dislike Crown Princess Mary of Denmark and speculate on her marriage. There is a TON of royal gossip out there.
Not to mention the hissy fit the Prince Consort Henrik threw a few years back because he hadn’t become a king even though he was married to a queen! A late life crisis I guess. When the Danish princes were younger there was also some issues with them speeding and thereby crashing their cars.
What situation with Prince Laurent? I’m intrigued. The CP Mary hate isn’t something that I’ve really come across in general here in Denmark. It seems to exists in remote corners on the internet, fed by people who live on the other side of the globe from Denmark. At least that has been my impression.
Carl Phillip’s girlfriend was certainly scandalous (wasn’t she a nude model?) but I don’t know if she has remade herself into a more clean-up and palatable image. The swedish king is fameous for his faux pas – especially in regards to hot-button political topics. When it comes to the strippers it is less clear-cut since the photos was revealed to be doctored. However, he was quite the playboy when he was young and he doesn’t seem to be the best judge of character because he’s certainly hung around with some less than savory people.
Princess Märtha-Louise speaks with angels! According to herself. She might be a bit of an excentric but I like her unique fashion sense (and it really is unique – she can pull of outfits that no other woman could make work) and she actually has her own business and has renounced her apanage. Her husband, a novelist, does seem a bit full of himself but no more than male authors that has written a slightly controversial novel.
Apparent,y Prince Laurent is dealing with some serious issues. He first started making statements that were vague and sounded like he was separating from his wife. She then issued a denial. He then went into the hospital for an illness but everything from a breakdown to a suicide attempt was rumored especially after the odd public behavior. His parents didn’t return to the country from their vacation the whole hospitalization and the whole thing was very odd. Hopefully he’s getting help because there seemed tone something there but it was also more fodder for talk about the strained relationships in the Belgian RF.
Yes Martha Louise is a character and I love to see what she wears. All of the stories of Mette-Marit and Mary (who both draw conclusions in various areas not unlike Kate–and some Mary detractors make the anti-Kates here seem like Pollyannas) and their own relations are there for the picking. Whether everything is true or not–that’s a matter for speculation but this IS a gossip site and some of the gossip or even just the fashion is as I reigning if not more so than the BRF. Just look at what’s blown up in Spain–criminal investigations, infidelity, abdication.
Apart from Prince Laurent’s big mouth and dodgy dealings with foreign countries and very peculiar public behaviour, he recently spent several weeks in a coma , the hospital said he had pneumonia and was put into an induced coma….which is odd because you are actually more likely to catch pneumonia while in a coma. Some very weird official statements came out from the family about him being fragile and the most vulnerable in the family. Reading between the lines the general condenses was that he had tried to commit suicide but no one was admitting it.
Sorry to repeat what you just said Kori……your post wasn’t up when I responded and there is no delete button on Celebitchy
Wow, the situation with Prince Laurent is just so incredibly sad. It sounds like he is ill.
I do agree that Spain really is providing the juicist gossip currently. That’s a heck of a lot of scandal! And some serious things too: the corruption charges especially. Things are so bad that the Spanish RF is in simple survival mode right now because there’s actually a real possibility that the monarchy there might be abolished again.
Regarding, the gossip about Mary and Mette-Marit in some corners of the internet. It is just vicious! And borderline slanderous – and it does make Kate critics seem quite tame in comparison!
I don’t know much about Metter-Marit and why she should inspire such volent ire, other than her slightly scandalous past. I know that the last few years have been hard on her: she has been ill and has undergone surgery – and her step-brother was murdered in the awful massacre at Utøya a few years back.
Regarding CP Mary. I’m actually rather baffled by the vicious attacks that she seems to inspire on the internet. She does her work with some good organizations – some of her causes are ant-bullying, mental health and women’s health in developing countries. She often has events every day. She is always elegantly dressed and she conducts herself with poise and dignity. I know people who have meet her in non-official circumstances and they say that she is polite, pleasant but also quite forthright. And her children are charming and well-mannered.
I have noticed that some royal gossip sites such as RD is really hard on the commoners who have married into royalty: hence the vicious criticism of Kate, Mary and Mette-Marit on sites like Royal Dish, which is really odd since many of the commenters are from places without monarchies and there’s some criticism of the institution of monarchy. Yet the tone of the conversations reveals that there’s this idea that born royals and aristocrats are somehow better than the commoners who have married into royalty. By the way, RD appears to have been created to slag off Mary in particular.
Beautiful!
What a gorgeous family.
If the baby’s due date was June 15th, the estimated date of conception would be September 20th. So honeymoon baby, or wedding night baby! , but she wasn’t pregnant at the wedding.
It is the same with Princess Madelein’s daughter Leonore – she was born 9 months after the wedding. Honeymoon bayby indeed, very sweet.
Yay Luxembourg! That’s where my family comes from, but they never get mentioned. This week we got two! A baby and marriage equality. I love it!