A Glittering Princely Wedding in Liechtenstein, Three Decades Later

Today in Liechtenstein, the only daughter of the Hereditary Prince and Princess will marry her fiancé at the principality’s cathedral. As we wait for news about Princess Marie Caroline’s bridal gown and tiara, we’re looking back today at the wedding of her parents three decades ago.

Hereditary Prince Alois, the eldest son of the Prince and Princess of Liechtenstein, met his future wife, Duchess Sophie in Bavaria, at a party hosted by mutual friends in Munich in the 1980s. After a romance of several years, they announced their engagement. The wedding festivities began Sophie’s native Germany on June 25, 1993, when her grandfather, the Duke of Bavaria, hosted a ball in the couple’s honor at Nymphenburg Palace.

For the occasion, Sophie wore a gown from the French fashion house Jacques Fath (which had been relaunched the year before). She borrowed a special family jewel for the occasion as well: a floral tiara, set with pearls and diamonds, that had belonged to her great-great-grandmother, Queen Maria Theresia of Bavaria. Sophie paired the tiara with a suite of diamond and sapphire jewels, a set that remains in her collection today.

Here’s a family group photo from the pre-wedding ball in Munich. From left to right, we have Sophie’s father, Duke Max in Bavaria; her mother, the Swedish-born Countess Elisabeth Douglas, who wore an interesting circlet set with diamonds and pearls; her grandfather, Albrecht, Duke of Bavaria; Sophie and Alois; Alois’s mother, Princess Marie, wearing the Kinsky Honeysuckle Tiara; and his father, Prince Hans-Adam II of Liechtenstein.

A little over a week later, the families gathered in Liechtenstein’s capital city, Vaduz, for Alois and Sophie’s wedding. Here, she walks with her father to St. Florin’s Church (now the Cathedral of St. Florin) ahead of the ceremony. She was accompanied by several royal bridesmaids and pageboys, including Alois’s cousins, Princess Maria-Anunciata and Princess Marie-Astrid, and three grandsons of the Grand Duke of Luxembourg, Prince Guillaume, Prince Felix, and Prince Louis. (Prince Guillaume is due to succeed his father as Grand Duke in just a few weeks’ time!)

Inside the church, several hundred guests waited for the bride. The ceremony was celebrated by Bishop Wolfgang Haas, who later became the first Archbishop of Vaduz. The witnesses for the couple included Alois’s sister, Princess Tatjana, and Sophie’s sister, Duchess Marie Caroline of Württemberg.

Here’s a view of Alois and Sophie departing the church after their wedding. Sophie wore a bridal gown made by a small company located in Bavaria, paired with an antique veil of Brussels lace. She anchored the veil with a tiara borrowed from her mother: the Douglas Floral Tiara, a nineteenth-century tiara made of diamond daisies. Sophie is the eldest of five sisters, and four of them have worn the jewel as a bridal diadem.

Here’s a look at one of the official wedding portraits taken of the couple after the wedding. The celebrations continued after the ceremony at Vaduz Castle, which has been the residence of the Princes of Liechtenstein since the eighteenth century. Alois and Sophie are still married today, and they have four children together: Prince Joseph Wenzel, Princess Marie Caroline, Prince Georg, and Prince Nikolaus.

Princess Marie Caroline is scheduled to marry her fiancé, Leopoldo Maduro Vollmer, at St. Florin’s in Vaduz later today. I’m planning on covering the jewels of the wedding if I’m able to license photographs to publish here. Cross your fingers, and check back later today (or possibly tomorrow!) for more!