November 29th 1934 saw the wedding of the Duke of Kent and Princess Marina of Greece and on December 1st the ILN commemorated the marriage with a 'Special Wedding Number'
(Appendix List No. 101). Prince George (by then the Duke of Kent) was born on December 20th 1902 and was the fifth child of the King and Queen. Princess Marina was born in Athens on December 13th 1906 and was the youngest of the three daughters of Prince and Princess Nicholas of Greece. The magazine illustrates the childhoods of the bride and bridegroom, the wedding presents, the marriage ceremony in Westminster Abbey, the couple’s return to Buckingham Palace in a glass coach and their departure for the first part of their honeymoon at Himley Hall, near Dudley, Staffordshire. There are also illustrations of the Greek Orthodox ceremony conducted in Buckingham Palace by Archbishop Germanos of Thyateira. There had only been one precedent for a double Anglican and Orthodox wedding ceremony in the records of the Royal Family of Great Britain - that of the Duke of Edinburgh, whose marriage with a Russian princess was solemnised at St. Petersburgh in 1874. That precedent guided the procedure in this case. A splendid supplement contains the portraits of Princess Marina and the Duke of Kent painted by Philip de Laszlo.
The front cover is dominated by a reproduction of the portrait specially painted for the ILN of Princess Marina by John St. Helier Lander. The words Wedding Number and nuptial motifs fill the title frame.
This is issue number 4989, vol. 185, pages 865-948, measuring 37 x 26 cm and priced at two shillings.
In August 1942 the Duke of Kent was killed on active service when his plane crashed in Scotland.
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