Diana's Bouquet... Then and Now

 Here is the last couple of weeks, I have noticed a deluge of information concerning the floral arrangements for royal weddings.  Most mention are articles mostly speculating on what type of bouquet Kate Middleton will carry.  Also, looking back seems to be the trend as well with many journalists and media outlets bringing back stories and pictures about "The" Royal Wedding of 1981.  I have read many articles both in print and online, and have seen a couple of documentaries expressly concerning the wedding of Princess Diana and Prince Charles.  What fun, reliving the magic again.  Most happily, some of the articles I have read deal specifically with Diana's bouquet.  Lists of the flower content, bouquet size, who designed it, who made it, the special meaning of the flowers, how many were made.  I have been waiting for years to see this kind of information available.  I am going to insert a link below taking readers to an article that features a story about a documentary that was made last year.  The documentary was leading up to the wedding of Princess Victoria of Sweden, and in it was featured a segment where Diana's bouquet is recreated.  My good friend Mr. David Longman (Longman's Ltd. of London made Diana and Fergie's bouquet as well as the Queen's) was consulted and helped set the stage for the bouquet being replicated, some 29 years later.

Here is the link to the article on the remake of the bouquet...
http://www.capelmedia.co.uk/news/fit-for-the-queen.html


And a picture of the replica bouquet...

Second part of my blog post today... there were a few bouquets made for Diana's wedding, one she carried during the ceremony, one used for a rehearsal the night before... and still a third used back at Buckingham Palace for the formal portraits.  The picture way above shows the bouquet coming out of the cathedral.  The picture below show the/a bouquet in the formal portraits... can you tell the differences between the two?  I can.  Obviously, or maybe not to some, there was more than one bouquet that day.  Now I am wondering which of the bouquets made it back to the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior at Westminster Abbey, and the one that didn't go... what happened to it?  Wonder where that second bouquet ended up?

See the differences???

Royal Wedding Tid-bit of the day... The gold used to make the royal wedding rings from Queen Mary down the years to Sarah Duchess of York, all came from the same large of gold, from a mine in Wales...in fact the only gold mine on the British Isles.