Sunday, June 24, 2012

The National Day

Yesterday was Luxembourg's National Day celebrating the official birthday of the Grand Duke (his actual one is in April) and the whole Grand Duchy in general.

Present for the occassion were the birthday boy himself Grand Duke Henri, his lovely wife Grand Duchess Maria Teresa, their oldest son and heir-apparent Hereditary Grand Duke Guillaume, Prince Felix, Prince Louis and his wife Princess Tessy as well as Princess Alexandra. Prince Sebastien was probably busy at uni while it was said that Countess Stéphanie de Lannoy, the fiancée of Guillaume, did not attend because she is not an official member of the family yet.

The day's celebrations started of with a Te Deum at the Cathédrale Notre-Dame celebrated by archbishop Jean-Claude Hollerich, followed by a (not only) military parade in the Avenue de la Liberté. The parade is traditionally only attended by the Grand Duke, the Grand Duchess and the Hereditary Grand Duke. In the evening a gala was held at the palais.

Grand Duchess Maria Teresa was dressed in an outfit by Natan and a hat by Jane Taylor. Princess Tessy also opted for a Jane Taylor hat while she wore a dress by Prada. Princess Alexandra wore a pink Carolina Herrera dress with a fascinator by Fabienne Delvigne.
Most notable in change in men's clothes: the Grand Duke and the Hereditary Grand Dukechanged their sashes between the religious service and the parade. While the two wore the (orange-coloured) Order of the Gold Lion of the House of Nassau in church, they changed into the (green and yellow) insignia of the Order of the Oak Crown for the parade. Princes Félix and Louis were their usual dashing selves.

The last couple of years, RTL uploaded both the videos of the Te Deum and of the military parade afterwards to their website. They haven't done so yet but I wouldn't give up my hope not just yet. Nevertheless, you can relive yesterday's most important moments in this thirty-minute special by RTL.

Pictures of the Te Deum can be found over at Wort, Revue and Lëtzebuerger Journal. RTL offers an extensive gallery of 685 visuals of the military parade, while Wort has a small one as does Revue. Combined galleries are available at PPE, the cour, Tageblatt, GettyImages #1, GettyImages #2, Daylife, Tom Wagner and APA Picturedesk.

Naturally, RTL covered the National Day in their evening news, Wort also has a video covering today's events.


Source: RTL

3 comments:

  1. Shame about not seeing Stephanie, although I can understand that she didn't attend. After all, she will be there all her life as of next year.... she might as well get one last 23rd June in peace!

    I wonder whether she will attend the olympics with the family though. it's less informal than national day, so I'm keeping fingers crossed!
    What do you think?

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  2. It could very well be possible that she attends the Olympics with them, it would be a private event while the national day was as official as one can get.

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  3. Damnit I missed the live broadcast :(

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