Royal Wedding Rewind: Princess Margaretha of Sweden and John Ambler – Royal Central

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Royal Wedding Rewind: Princess Margaretha of Sweden and John Ambler

By
30th June 2021

The Royal Family of Sweden does love a June wedding. The majority of their modern marriages have taken place in the month and June comes to an end with another Swedish royal wedding anniversary. Princess Margaretha, the eldest sister of King Carl XVI Gustaf, married businessman John Ambler on June 30th 1964 in a ceremony strikingly different from those of her sisters. Let’s rewind to the royal wedding of Margaretha of Sweden.

Princess Margaretha announced her engagement to John Ambler in February 1964 with a date set for the last day of June that year. However, Margaretha chose to marry away from the Swedish capital, Stockholm, picking the church at Gardslosa on the island of Oland for her big day.

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She also chose to follow local traditions rather than royal ones and wore the wedding crown belonging to the church for her marriage, rather than one of the famous Swedish royal tiaras. However, it was the atelier at Martaskolen who provided the wedding dress, just as it had for her sisters, Birgitta and Desiree.

The bride carried a large bouquet of summer flowers, studded with marguerites, or daisies, the flowers with which she shared her name.

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Princess Margaretha and John Ambler set up home in the UK and had three children but eventually separated in the 1990s. They never divorced and John Ambler died in 2008.

There is lots more about this historic royal wedding in our new anthology, out now. Royal Weddings, A Collection is on sale as a paperback and an ebook at Amazon.

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About author

Lydia Starbuck is Jubilee and Associate Editor at Royal Central and the main producer and presenter of the Royal Central Podcast and Royal Central Extra. Lydia is also a pen name of June Woolerton who is a journalist and writer with over twenty years experience in TV, radio, print and online. Her latest book, A History of British Royal Jubilees, is out now. Her new book, The Mysterious Death of Katherine Parr, will be published in March 2024. June is an award winning reporter, producer and editor. She's appeared on outlets including BBC 5 Live, BBC Radio Ulster and BBC Local Radio and has also helped set up a commercial radio station. June is also an accomplished writer with a wide range of material published online and in print. She is the author of two novels, published as e-books. She is also a marriage registrar and ceremony celebrant.