And The Royal Bride Wore... Oscar De La Renta

History repeated itself this weekend, as Napoleon Bonaparte’s great-great-great nephew wed the great-grand-daughter of Austria's last emperor on 19 October, at the Saint-Louis-des-Invalides cathedral in Paris.

The marriage between Prince Jean-Christophe Napoleon Bonaparte and Countess Olympia von und zu Arco-Zinneberg marks a union between the former Imperial House of France and the Austrian House of Habsburg, echoing the 1810 wedding of Napoleon Bonaparte I and the Archduchess Marie-Louise of Austria (without the strategic political motivations).

The bride wore a graphic Oscar de la Renta gown with a cut-out fern motif and a matching capelet, which was removed for the reception at the historic Palace of Fontainebleau.

Olympia is the latest royal to eschew the dainty satin-and-lace wedding gowns of yesteryear. The Duchess of Sussex famously sparked the trend for modernity when she wore a minimal ivory satin dress by Givenchy's Clare Waight Keller for her wedding to Prince Harry in 2018, and Princess Eugenie continued in that vein when she wore a simple silk-jacquard wedding gown by Peter Pilotto to walk down the aisle last October.