Thursday, April 26, 2012

The Future Hereditary Grand Duchess

First of all, pictures of the young lady and her future husband can be found over at L'essentiel, RTL and Wort.

Countess Stéphanie Marie Claudine Christine de Lannoy was born on February 18th, 1984 in Ronse, East Flanders. Being the youngest of eight children of Count Philippe de Lannoy and Alix della Faille de Leverghem, she has four older brothers Jehan, Christian, Amaury and Olivier as well as three sisters, Nathalie, Gaëlle and Isabelle. She grew up on the family estate the Château d'Anvaing.

The Lannoys are old Belgian nobility and named after the city of Lannoy in Northern France where they reigned once upon a time; they are counts of the Holy Roman Empire. Her grandfather was lord stewart at the Belgian court.

Stephanie started schooling at the Dutch-speaking school Sancta Maria de Ronse, before moving to France for a while to attend the Collège Saint-Odile. She finished her educational training at the Institut de la Vierge Fidèle in Brussels where she graduated in 2002.

After finishing school, the moved to Moscow for a year to take language courses as well as a course about Russian literature. She also intensified studying the violin.

The fiancée of the Hereditary Grand Duke studied German philology at Louvain-la-Neuve and received her master's degree from a university in Berlin. She wrote her master's thesis about the influence of German romanticism on Russian romanticism. 

Apart from French (and probably English and Dutch), she speaks German and Russian.

She finished off her time in Berlin with an internship at the L'Agence Wallone à l'Exportation at the Belgian embassy. Since her return to Belgium, she has been working for an investment firm.

During her lifetime she has completed various journeys with the volunteers of different youth movements.

Stephanie is interested in classical music (as is Guillaume btw) and has had musical education since she has been a child. She plays the violin and piano. While she was a teenager she developed an interest in literature. She made use of her foreign language skills to read literature in their original language. She likes to swim and to ski.

Guillaume and Stephanie have known each other for a couple of years and have been dating for about two years. 

She is currently living in her family home in Brussels but that's likely to change soon.

As already mentioned the future Hereditary Grand Duchess Stephanie is the daughter of Count Philippe de Lannoy (*1922), son of Count Paul (1898-1980) and Princess Beatrice de Ligne (1898-1982), and Alix della Faille de Leverghem (*1941), daughter of Harold della Faille de Leverghem (1908-1994) and Madeleine de Brouchoven de Bergeyck (1912-1996). Her parents got married in July 17th, 1965 in Oelegem.

She is the youngest of eight children:
  •  Jehan (*1966) ⚭ Beatrice Spatses
    • Caroline
    • Louise
    • Antoine
    • Maxime
  • Christian (*1968) ⚭ Luisa Moreno de Porras-Isla-Fdez
    • Teresa
  • Nathalie (*1969) ⚭ John Hamilton
    • Alix
    • Antonia
    • Charlotte
    • Madeleine
  • Gaëlle (*1970)
  • Amaury (*1971)
  • Olivier (*1974) ⚭ Alice van Havre
    • Philippe
  • Isabelle (*1976) ⚭ Jean-Charles de le Court
    • Aline
    • Isaure
    • Lancelot
  • Stéphanie (*1984)

4 comments:

  1. if he is happy, i am happy!!!!

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  2. Hm.. I don't know if I find her attractive or not...

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  3. He is so smitten by her and is very much in love. He is very demonstrative in his affections toward her. I have seen no more than three pictures where she exchanges glances with him. She seems to be more intent on posing for the cameras. I wish them much happiness in their future lives together.

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  4. Re above comment - I think she is just nervous at being so in the spotlight (unlike her fiance who has been carefully groomed for it).

    What I find interesting is that her lengthy education has been basically in German literature, yet now she works in an investment firm. ???

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