From endless diamonds to personal touches.
Today the whole world is all about love. From rose petals to candlelight dinners: Valentine’s Day is celebrated extensively! The opportunity for Glamial to reflect on the love stories of our favorite royals. Last week we looked back at the best (and worst) royal proposals, and such a proposal naturally includes a lavish engagement ring. With a whopper of a diamond on it, please.
Willem-Alexander and Máxima: nice and on-brand
If you, as an outsider, marry a Van Oranje, you better prepare yourself for a whole lot of Orange colors in your future. The tone was immediately set for the then thirty-year-old Máxima Zorreguieta with an orange engagement ring!
engagement Maxima Willem Alexander 2001 1100
Image: NL Image
The website of the Royal House explains in detail what kind of ring the then-Crown Prince Willem-Alexander proposed to our current queen with. On her ring finger is a platinum ring, set with an oval-cut orange diamond. This is provided with emerald cut diamonds on both sides, and enclosed between two bands set with brilliant cut diamonds. Nice and appropriate!
William and Kate: the trendsetters
From day one, it was clear that everything Catherine Middleton touched would turn to gold. When she appeared there as the future Duchess of Cambridge and Princess of Wales at Prince William’s side in her blue dress, designer Issa was overwhelmed with orders.
Image: NL Image
The princess’s engagement ring also caused a real rush for sapphire rings. But let’s be honest: hers was of course a unique work of art with a personal touch. Her fiancé had chosen this ring herself from the jewelry of the late Princess Diana. Despite the fourteen radiant diamonds, the central sapphire was really the stone that stole the show.
Harry and Meghan: classic and personal
Just like brother William, Prince Harry also managed to incorporate a sweet nod to his mother into his engagement ring. For example, the ring with which he went down on one knee for Meghan (just in the backyard) was equipped with three diamonds, two of which were from Princess Diana’s jewelry collection.
Image: NL Image
The large central diamond also has a special meaning for the couple: this (conflict-free) stone comes from Botswana, where Harry reportedly first decided he wanted to propose to Meghan. Sweet!
Felipe and Letizia: big load of diamonds
The Spanish Felipe also kept it classic when he proposed to his great love, Letizia Ortiz Rocasolano, in complete secrecy. That the two were in a relationship at all was unknown to the outside world, and as far as was known, the two had met for the first time only a few weeks earlier at a short meet and greet between the royals and the Spanish press.
Image: NL Image
However, Felipe and Leti had been crazy about each other for some time, and with the engagement ring on Letizia’s finger it became clear how much she meant to the Spanish Crown Prince. Her white gold band was set with no less than sixteen baguette cut diamonds. Sweet detail: Felipe enlisted his brother-in-law to collect the ring from the jeweler in complete secrecy. You need it to be clear from your in-laws!
Albert and Charlene: be expensive
Monaco is not an absolute jet-set location for nothing. And as monarch of the micro-principality, you have a reputation to uphold! Albert also knew this, who got down on one knee in front of his Charlene with a whopper of a diamond.
Image: NL Image
In the stylish engagement photos from 2010, the radiant diamond on Charlene’s ring finger is impossible to miss. The work of art with its pear-shaped diamond is said to be a custom design, which according to insiders may have been designed by the Italian jewelry house Repossi. Expert Jeremy Hinds previously shared with Express that the central stone would weigh about three carats, and has several small diamonds on either side. The estimated total value is around €65,000.
You’d accidentally wash it down the sink with the dishes…
Source: Royal Household, The Daily Mail, Spare, The Court Jeweller, Express, Glamial archive | Image: NL Image
