Royal Fashion Awards: Nikolaos and Tatiana's Pre-Wedding Party

Alright!  Let the fun begin.  Tonight in Greece the royal family held a pre-wedding party in advance of tomorrow's big wedding.  Let's start with the main sartorial event: the bride and groom.

Tatiana's been rocking the Greek goddess thing for a while now, and this is the epitome.  Gor-geous.  But I included the two of them together for a reason, and not only to make sure you have ample time to admire the most tanned bridal couple in royal history.  Look at Tatiana. Now look at Nikolaos.  She's in a gown, he's in sneakers.  I'd really like to know what sort of dress code the invitation to this party spelled out, because we've got some interesting choices directly ahead...

Best of the Bumps: Real and Speculative
 Left to Right: Princess Letizia, Crown Princess Victoria, Crown Princess Mary
Mary, obviously, is actually pregnant (although curiously lacking in the baby bump area considering there's two of them in there).  But Victoria and Letizia seem dressed to spawn similar speculation themselves.  All three ladies look fantastic, I must say.  (Even Letizia!  Mark this one down on the calendar, I'm doling out compliments and she gets one!  Maybe I am a nice person after all.)  Mary's sporting Missoni here.  Victoria's my favorite - it's floaty and summery and I like it so much I'll do her a solid and ignore the shoes.

Best of the Prints
 L to R: Princess Cristina, Princess Elena, Lady Gabriella Windsor
A balmy cocktail night out is the perfect opportunity for a little fun with prints, and these ladies look excellent.  I could do without the shoes on Cristina and without the bag on Gabriella (is that sparkly?  With the printed dress?), so Elena wins by default.  Besides, she deserves a little encouragement after making my list of Top 10 Worst Dressed Royal Wedding Guests for her showing at Victoria's wedding.

Best of the Greeks
L to R: Princess Theodora, Princess Alexia, Crown Princess Pavlos
The Greek ladies seemed to be the ones that truly got the dress code right; and fittingly, it is their party after all.  Theodora looks just like the movie star she's trying to become.  Marie Chantal looks good too; she's finally found the right dress to wear those shoes with.  But Alexia - hello!  She hasn't looked this good since I started this blog.  This outfit fits her (finally!) and the black and turquoise combination is perfection.  Gold star.

Best of the Worst
L to R: Queen Anne Marie, Princess Máxima, Queen Sofia, Princess Rosario, Princess Marie
Ah, so much to pick from.  Dress code confusion abounds!  Let's break it down, one at a time:
  • The mother of the groom.  This is a matching sweater set outfit.  I like the necklace and the smile, but this just doesn't seem fancy enough for a function celebrating your son's wedding. 
  • Máx.  There's nothing inherently wrong with this dress, but the shoulder thing is a bit fancy for this event, and the overly strong slightly mismatched shoes have the air of unfortunately dressed bridesmaid about them.
  • Sofia.  Wow.  Do we need to talk about why this is the unequivocal best of the worst?  Could there by any more patterns involved here?
  • Rosario.  Now, this picture was labeled with the rest of the party pics on all the photo sites I saw, but I'm just desperately hoping they got that wrong.  Because that looks like a bikini top under there.  UPDATE: it is indeed a dress from earlier in the day.  Correct dress to come later.
  • Marie, oh Marie.  She always tries so hard, and yet she always carries the ghost of the early- to mid-1990s with her.  This is part undergarment and part swimsuit cover up.  And wholly unfortunate.  UPDATE: this is from earlier in the day too, whoops.  I still don't like it, though.
So, what did you think?  Who makes your best- and worst-dressed lists for the wedding celebration kick off?

Here are the updated pics I missed the first time around:
Madeleine's wearing a repeat Oscar de la Renta, lovely.  Rosario and Marie - now, they certainly look better than what I originally thought, but I can't help but think at least some of my original critiques apply.

Many thanks to the ravishingly beautiful commenters that pointed me in the right direction for the updates.  E-smooches all around.

Photos: Getty Images/Daylife/BEW/Profimedia