Royal Book Challenge: Five Gold Rings - A Royal Wedding Souvenir Album

61/500
Five Gold Rings: A Royal Wedding Souvenir Album from Queen Victoria to Queen Elizabeth II
Published 2007
120 Pages

Next to royal jewels, one of my favorite subjects is royal weddings. In all honesty, I can't get enough of them. The beautiful wedding dresses, the flowers, the jewels, the official photographs, the sense of optimism for the newlyweds and the true pageantry is stunning.

Five Gold Rings was published to mark the Diamond wedding wedding anniversary of the Queen and Prince Philip and it accompanied the exhibit at Buckingham Palace, which no doubt would have provided lots of eye candy for royal watchers. For people like me, who cannot make it to the exhibits, I am grateful the Royal Collection publishes books such as this with highlights.

I have several books about royal weddings in my collection, but I would have to say that this is my favorite. Spanning 107 years of royal wedding history, it features 275 illustrations from five royal weddings: Queen Victoria and Prince Albert (1840), King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra (1863), King George VI and Queen Elizabeth (1923) and Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip (1947).

Inside the book is a veritable feast of royal wedding lace, jewels, fashions, menus, diary entries, china, wedding gifts, pieces of wedding cake, letters, souvenirs, list of hymns from each royal wedding and some surprisingly sentimental items such as pressed roses the future King Edward VII received from his fiancée the day of their engagement. The highlights are the close up images of royal jewels as well as royal wedding dresses.


Out of all of these weddings, my favorites are Prince George, Duke of York and Princess May of Teck. I love Victorian fashion and everything about the era. Their successful marriage of a reserved couple brought together by the death of Princess May's original fiancé and Prince George's older brother, Prince Albert Victor.


I also love the details from the wedding of Princess Elizabeth to Prince Philip. A beautiful bride and heiress to the throne, with her stunningly handsome groom, provided a much needed moment of glamour so soon after the war. I don't think the Queen has ever looked lovelier than on her wedding day. Lady Diana, Sarah Ferguson and Kate Middleton have nothing on her.


Five Gold Rings is a fantastic book and a must have for anyone interested in the subject.

© Marilyn Braun 2015