Queen Victoria’s 1846 wedding anniversary gifts and outfit

Described by Queen Victoria as ‘the dearest happiest day of my life’, Tuesday 10th February 1846 marked the sixth anniversary of her marriage to Prince Albert. In her journal she wrote ‘I can never be Thankful enough for the great blessing of my dearest Albert’s wonderful love. Words cannot express all I owe to him, & how I adore him.’

After hearing about the events of the parliamentary debate the previous evening, the loved-up couple exchanged gifts. Victoria’s gifts to Albert inflicted ‘a seal, a pin & a blotting book, worked by myself’. However, Albert’s gifts were much more poignant and included ‘a lovely unexpected present’ that would remind Victoria of her wedding day for decades to come. Resembling the one Victoria wore on her wedding day, Albert had designed a unique headdress of porcelain orange blossoms, frosted gold leaves and four green enamel oranges, where represented their four eldest children. Still surviving in the Royal Collection, the piece was made to match a pair of earrings and brooches that Albert had given to Victoria as previous gifts. The Queen was overjoyed by her gift and wrote in her journal ‘it is such a lovely wreath & such a dear kind thought of Albert’s’.

That evening Victoria proudly wore her ‘beloved one’s lovely gifts… & a white watered silk dress trimmed with lace’ to dinner before appearing in them to watch a performance of “Antigone” in the Gallery at Buckingham Palace.

The orange blossom parure was last displayed in 2019 as part of the ‘Victoria: Woman and Crown’ exhibition at Kensington Palace, which marked 200 years since the monarch’s birth.

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