An Interesting Coincidence: When Queen Elizabeth Wore Blue to a Family Wedding, the Couple Got Divorced

Marie Claire has reported on the royal family’s affinity for wearing the color blue—it is basically Queen Camilla’s signature hue, and the Wales family of five is often coordinated in the color. (Once you see the pattern, you can’t unsee it.) It seems the bent towards blue goes back decades, as the late Queen Elizabeth (famous for wearing a rainbow of colors, usually bright and “can’t miss me” shades) also heavily leaned towards blue—especially for weddings.

In one of the most intriguing coincidences we’ve heard about lately, People uncovered that Her late Majesty donned blue to the weddings of her three oldest children: Princess Anne and Mark Phillips in 1973, Prince Charles and Princess Diana in 1981, and Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson in 1986. The color choice, the outlet reports, proved to be a “bad omen,” as the traditional something blue maybe didn’t work out for the best in this case—all three of those couples eventually divorced. The late Queen also sported blue at her younger sister Princess Margaret’s wedding to Antony Armstrong-Jones in 1960 and, you guessed it, that marriage also ended in divorce.

“Blue seemed to be a favorite hue of the Queen when she was a guest at a close family member’s wedding—even though it turned out to be a bad omen,” the outlet writes. “Queen Elizabeth wore blue to several royal weddings that eventually ended in divorce, from her sister Princess Margaret to three of her children.”

The odd coincidence started in 1960, when Margaret married Armstrong-Jones, who became the Earl of Snowdon. The Queen wore a blue dress designed by Norman Hartnell, who designed her own wedding dress when she married Prince Philip in 1947, as well as many other looks she wore in the years after. Hartnell also designed Margaret’s wedding dress as well as all of the outfits worn by the royal women for the big day.

“The wedding marked a turning point in the protocol of royal dress, as it was the last occasion on which members of the royal family wore full-length day dress for a family wedding,” The Royal Collection Trust stated. “Cecil Beaton, the official photographer of the wedding, described his portrait of the Queen taken on this occasion: ‘The Queen was enormously appealing to me. Her dress was quite wonderfully romantic—with a skirt of stiff folds—and everything of a kingfisher brilliance.’” 

Eighteen years and two children later, the couple divorced in 1978.

Anne was the first of the Queen’s four children to wed, marrying Mark Phillips in 1973. While Her late Majesty’s only daughter wore the same wedding tiara as her mother did for her own wedding, the Queen—once again—wore blue (this time royal blue); after two children and 19 years of marriage, the couple divorced in 1992.

All eyes were on the wedding of the century in 1981, when Diana Spencer married Charles, the heir to the throne. Once again, the Queen chose blue, “opting for a seasonally appropriate shade of the color for the summer wedding,” People reports. (The wedding was in July.) “She accessorized with a coordinating hat as well as some of her signature pieces: a pearl necklace and gloves.” 

We don’t have to tell you that (spoiler alert) Charles and Diana, who also had two kids, separated in 1992 and eventually finalized their divorce in 1996.

The coincidence continued at the 1986 wedding of Andrew to Sarah Ferguson; the Queen wore a periwinkle dress for the occasion. The Duke and Duchess of York, like Andrew’s two older siblings before him, also ended their marriage in 1992, when the couple separated (see why the Queen called 1992 her “annus horribilis”?); their divorce was also finalized in 1996. Coincidentally, the pair also shared two children.

Apparently thankfully for couples since, Her late Majesty chose other colors for royal weddings thereafter. Her youngest child, Prince Edward, is the only one of her four children whose first marriage lasted the duration; he married Sophie Rhys-Jones in 1999, and the Queen wore purple. (They have been married for 24 years and share two children.)

When Prince William married Kate Middleton in 2011, the Queen wore yellow (of which People writes “her sunny outfit matched her demeanor on the big day”), and when Prince Harry married Meghan Markle in 2018, she wore green. Both of those couples—who share three children and two children, respectively—are happily married.

But the curse might be broken for this generation: Her late Majesty returned to her love of blue at the weddings of granddaughters Princess Eugenie and Princess Beatrice in 2018 and 2020, respectively. (The photo at the top of this article is from Eugenie's wedding.) Both Eugenie and Jack Brooksbank (who share two children) and Beatrice and Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi (who share two children as well—Mapelli Mozzi’s son from a previous relationship, Wolfie, and Sienna, who the couple welcomed in 2021), are doing just fine.