Queen offered Meghan a choice of tiaras

[babsanderson]

Below is an extract that describes Meghan being given the tiara to wear for her wedding by the Queen. Another passage describes hoe Angela Levin would not allow Meghan to get access to the tiara before her wedding to practise it with her hairdresser.

"Next came the question of a tiara. My aunts asked if Meg would like to wear my mother’s. We were both touched. Meg then spent hours and hours with her dress designer, getting the veil to match the tiara, giving it a similar scalloped edge. Shortly before the wedding, however, Granny reached out. She offered us access to her collection of tiaras. She even invited us to Buckingham Palace to try them on. Do come over, I remember her saying.
Extraordinary morning. We walked into Granny’s private dressing room, right next to her bedroom, a space I’d never been in. Along with Granny was a jewelry expert, an eminent historian who knew the lineage of each stone in the royal collection. Also present was Granny’s dresser and confidante, Angela. Five tiaras were arrayed on a table, and Granny directed Meg to try on each one before a full-length mirror. I stood behind, watching.
One was all emeralds. One was aquamarines. Each was more dazzlingly stunning than the last. Each took my breath. I wasn’t the only one. Granny said to Meg quite tenderly: Tiaras suit you.
Meg melted. Thank you, Ma’am.
One of the five, however, stood out. Everyone agreed. It was beautiful, seemingly made for Meg. Granny said it would be placed in a safe directly and she looked forward to seeing it on Meg’s head come the Big Day. Make sure, she added, that you practice putting it on. With your hairdresser. It’s tricky and you don’t want to be doing it for the first time on the wedding day."

Spare, Harry

jads
I am not fan of Harry, but the story of him giving William their mum's ring for Kate was really heart warming. It's a bit well disappointing.

This has been talked about for years….why didn’t Harry correct this misinformation? He’s had years to set the record straight. Perhaps he was happy for this to be in the public domain as it put him in a good light.

So the story is

Meghan picked a tiara
H&M didn’t know they it would probably take more than 12 hours to arrange to have a priceless piece of Jewellery moved, didn’t give much notice.

AK didn’t have an out of office on and was away. Likely didn’t have an out of office on as she doesn’t need as people do not make short notice requests of her. She may also, likes lots of people check their email once every day or so and would not need an out of office. She didn’t immediately respond. But there’s no evidence she ever is expected to respond to emails, instantly.

and somehow this has turned into Meghan being banned from wearing anything of Diana’s, when it was fine for Kate. And AK probably being racist. Despite there being no evidence of this. Even Harry’s book didn’t say these things?

Where do people get this stuff? Couldn’t possibly be something as simple as miscommunication and late planning.

@Thesealsknowsheismagic you forgot the Queen "reaching out", otherwise good summary thus far

Plus this bit

Granny said it would be placed in a safe directly

Where does he think it was normally kept, then?

Ah yes! Thank you! 😃

I like the sound of Angela Kelly tbh. I ignore dickheads who think that I work for them (when I don’t). I never respond to emails OOH and don’t put a message on my emails either (I’m a teacher so they should know I’m not at work in the school holidays). Anyone getting arsey because I’ve had the temerity to take time off gets bumped to the back of the queue for a response when I return. If I’m off it usually because I’m sick in term time, but I’ve had one get proper angry when I didn’t respond over the Christmas break - I passed that straight up and refused to deal with the parent.

I can easily imagine that being the Queen’s dresser doesn’t have any requirement to access emails even semi-regularly. Surely anyone who needed to contact her would know she was away. And it’s hilarious that anyone might think that 12hrs (or even 24tbh) would be a reasonable timeframe for having a royal tiara loaned out to go to the hairdressers.

Re the ring - I don’t understand is why anyone would want Diana’s engagement ring. It’s beautiful, but that marriage was doomed from the start, and I wouldn’t want those bad vibes hanging around.

@Eyerollcentral
@ancientgran it Is outrageous that @babsanderson is calling AK a racist with absolutely no basis for saying so.

I reported that, but it was still there last time I looked, so HQ evidently see no problem with it.

you forgot the Queen "reaching out"

The Queen did not 'reach out'. She was not a member of the Four Tops.

I can't stop picturing the Queen singing with the Four Tops now. I have to say she's doing it really well, fits in beautifully.

Harry gave William that ring. I wish he hadn't.

Why? What effect has this had on your life? What a strange thing to say.

I think Harry says in the book that Meghan chose to go with one of the Queen's tiaras, it was her choice not to wear the Spencer tiara.
Considering that Harry refers to Angela's as AK-47 throughout the book I think we can assume that the relationship was never the best. Angela Kelly seems to have been a wonderful servant to the Queen and perhaps that's the crux of Harry's problem.

Oh it must be true, then! Dear god….

Yes I imagine she wasn’t intimidated by him. Apparently liz relied on her opinion. I wonder if between AK and the queen’s other advisors the Bee, etc. they’d all set her straight about Harry’s behaviour and that’s why made that ridic statement in that interview about wanting to protect her from those around her. He is petty and holds a grudge so I think it’s likely

I think M got Diana's Cartier watch and H bought her the bracelet to go with it - plus a couple of diamonds to go in her engagement ring ( which she had remodelled after he had had it made ) so I don't think either son was let down re Mother's jewellery - I think M got that most beautiful aquamarine ring - now that I would love. But sadly never married a royal with a lovely trinket box 😁

@babsanderson Do you honestly think the RF or the Queen would have refused to let M wear the Spencer tiara if she had wanted to ? Harry could have explained to them my mother wore it I would like my wife to . He stands up for his wife quite a bit. I obviously do not know but had she wanted to and Uncle C was agreeable I find this hard to believe But hey ho what do I know - pretty much nothing .

Considering that Harry refers to Angela's as AK-47 throughout the book I think we can assume that the relationship was never the best. Angela Kelly seems to have been a wonderful servant to the Queen and perhaps that's the crux of Harry's problem.

I wonder if she was lurking protectively when Harry visited The Queen last year, checking she had "the right" people around her. Good luck with that Harry 🙄

To go back to accessing the tiara, I feel sure AK wouldn't have been the only person who could arrange availability of jewels from the palace vault or wherever they are kept. There must surely have been occasions when a royal lady or two were attending a gala or something and needed suitable bling to wear, and AK was on holiday.
And if she is now retired, who has responsibility now - how soon after the death of Her Majesty did that person take over? At her funeral that special choker Kate wore and I think the brooch Camilla wore are items from the collection? Who released those?

But I would guess the way to go about it would have been to get one of the PAs or secretaries to contact AK to make an arrangements to access the tiara. One gets the impression it was a short notice thing due to arrival of the hairdresser, and instead of having an appointment at the palace with AK in attendance they thought they could just ring her up at short notice and demand the tiara be delivered to them. Bonkers.

Also, if I had married into the RF I would see AK as someone to suck up to like crazy. Being in her favour would surely have been advantageous - maybe she would make helpful suggestions about clothing choices or digging out some wow factor jewels from the vault. And of course she had Her Majesty's ear.

No William got the cartier watch.

Interestingly the Cartier Love bracelet Meghan wears was given to her by her first husband, not harry.

I bet AK helped Beatrice rootless out a suitable vintage gown from The Queen's collection for her wedding dress and then wasn't it her who made the adjustments so it fitted? An extra strip was added to the hem to make it longer - I'm not sure that worked too well imo, but with the eye drawn to B's happy face, the great tiara and the beautiful bodice of the dress the extra bit sewn onto the hem was easy to overlook.

H&M didn’t know they it would probably take more than 12 hours to arrange to have a priceless piece of Jewellery moved, didn’t give much notice.

Hold it right there.
Google says MM's wedding planner was a gal called Jessica Mulroney, also said JM was MM's "secret wedding planner."

MM didn't appoint a wedding planner, did she? Literally all this crap happened because she didn't hire/trust professionals to delegate to?

How do you know how much notice was given?
And if that was true why not reply and say that? Instead they heard nothing at all.

Are you 100% sure?

Or are you basing that on the story of Harry picking the ring (which isn’t true) and William picking the watch?

How many Cartier watches did Diana have?

Either Angela deliberately did not want to help Meghan, or the set up is very unorganised and unprofessional.

@Thesealsknowsheismagic How do you know that is not true?

No one got back to them at all?

How long did they wait before deciding no one was getting back to them and contact someone else?

... or there was a lot to do & MM literally couldn't keep track of it all.
This is why people hire wedding planners.