On 18 September 1964, in the Athens Cathedral of the Annunciation, a nineteen-year-old Danish princess married a Greek king who had reigned for only six months. Exactly 62 years ago. Constantine was 24 and had come to the throne after his father died of stomach cancer. Anne-Marie converted from Protestantism to Greek Orthodoxy in order to marry him. Nobody knew then that this was the beginning of the last Greek royal wedding.

They met when she was twelve, during a visit of his to Copenhagen. The friendship began when he turned nineteen. Once he became king, he waited for her to come of age so they could marry. That is a story told in court circles as a romance; seen from outside it is also a schedule in which everyone is waiting on a calendar.

The bride arrived by carriage, as did the groom, accompanied by his mother, Queen Frederica. The ceremony was led by Archbishop Chrysostomos II. The Romanov crowns above the couple's heads were held by European rulers - Harald of Norway, Carl Gustaf of Sweden, Charles of England and Juan Carlos of Spain. Four men who would all later sit on thrones of their own, in a room where nobody knew which of them would lose his.

At 11:30, a 101-gun salute announced the new queen to Greece. More than 1,000 guests from every great royal house, the aristocracy and high society.

The dress was simple, and that was deliberate. It was created by the Danish designers Holger Blom and Jørgen Bender - a six-metre train, matte satin and an empire waist, inspired by French court fashion of the early nineteenth century. A boat neckline, French sleeves and gathers at the bust. The dress disappeared in December 1967, when the family went into exile in Rome, and resurfaced only in November 2023, during the renovation of the Tatoi Palace - the former residence of the Greek court. Fifty-six years in a room nobody had opened.

The veil was not new. Irish lace in the Juliet style, previously worn by both her mother and her grandmother. Her grandmother, Margaret of Connaught, wore the same veil when she married the Swedish king Gustaf VI Adolf, in St George's Chapel at Windsor.

The tiara was a gift from an Egypt that no longer exists. Made by Cartier, it was presented by Abbas II, Khedive of Egypt and Sudan, to Princess Margaret of Connaught in 1904. They had met at a ball in the viceroy's palace in Cairo. Diamonds and laurel spirals, more than sixty years later on the head of a bride in Athens. Around her neck she also wore a cross of brilliants.

The train was carried by six princesses: Irene of Greece, Anne of the United Kingdom, Christina of Sweden, Margarita of Romania, Tatiana Radziwill and Clarissa of Hesse. All in white, with bows at the waist and embroidered hems.

After the ceremony, the procession set off for the royal palace in Athens. The reign lasted less than a decade. Five children - Alexia, Pavlos, Nikolaos, Theodora and Philippos - and an exile that began three years after that wedding. That photograph from 18 September 1964 no longer looks like the start of a reign, but like the last bright image before something else.