page_title: Princess Marina of Greece and Denmark
section_title: Wedding ceremony
hierarchical_section_title: Princess Marina of Greece and Denmark / Marriage and children / Wedding ceremony
caption_attribution_description: Princess Marina, photographed on her wedding day, November 1934
context_page_description: Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent born Princess Marina of Greece and Denmark, CI, GCVO, GBE, later known as The Duchess of Kent, was a princess of the Greek royal house, who married Prince George, Duke of Kent, fourth son of King George V and Queen Mary in 1934. They had three children: Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, Princess Alexandra, and Prince Michael.
  The Princess was widowed in 1942, when her husband was killed in a plane crash on active service. In later life, she carried out many royal engagements, including the independence celebrations for Ghana and Botswana.
context_section_description: In 1932 Princess Marina and Prince George (later the Duke of Kent), a second cousin through Christian IX of Denmark, met in London. Their betrothal was announced in August 1934. Prince George was created Duke of Kent on 9 October 1934. Marina's engagement ring was made out of a "square-cut Kashmir sapphire set in platinum with a baton diamond on either side". On 29 November 1934, they married at Westminster Abbey, London. The wedding was a grand affair, as it had been more than ten years since the last royal wedding with Prince Albert, Duke of York, and Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon. The wedding of Prince George and Princess Marina was the first royal wedding ceremony to be broadcast by wireless, and with the use of other technology, such as microphones—the control room was located underneath the Unknown Warrior's tomb of Westminster Abbey. The service was broadcast locally and abroad to other nations, and loudspeakers allowed spectators from outside the Abbey to hear the proceedings. The wedding was followed by a Greek ceremony in the private chapel at Buckingham Palace, which was converted into an Orthodox chapel for the ceremony. This was the first time this had been done since the wedding of Princess Marina's great-aunt, Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna of Russia to Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, during the reign of Queen Victoria. The wedding was the most recent occasion on which a foreign-born princess married into the British Royal Family.
  The bride's gown was in white and silver silk brocade, designed by Edward Molyneux, and worked on by a team of seamstresses including, at Marina's request, Russian émigrées. The dress featured "sheath silhouette, a draped cowl neckline, trumpet sleeves, and a wide train." A tiara, given to her as a wedding gift, secured her tulle veil.
  Her eight bridesmaids were her first cousins, Greek princesses Irene, Eugenie and Katherine, her maternal first cousin Grand Duchess Kira Kirillovna of Russia, her first cousin once removed Princess Juliana of the Netherlands, her husband's niece Princess Elizabeth of York, her husband's cousins the Lady Iris Mountbatten and Lady Mary Cambridge.
  The Royal School of Needlework made a quilt as a wedding gift for Princess Marina and the Duke of Kent.
caption: Princess Marina on her wedding day
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