A WEDDING FIT FOR A PRINCESS
When royal Tatiana married businessman Guillermo Sierra, guests were treated to beauty of Mexico
A table of family photos shows just how busy Princess Tatiana and Guillermo Sierra have been in the past year. Nestled among the picture frames filled with smiling faces and happy people are images from three weddings all in the same family in a six-month period.
Tatiana and Guillermo — she’s the princess ascended from Russian and Austrian royalty, and he’s the Mexico-born investment banker who saw her standing in front of a downtown business office one day — fill many of those photos that capture their dazzling wedding in Mexico City that entertained 420 guests for nearly a week in April.
Princess Tatiana, 33, an architect, was lured to Houston from San Francisco for a job at Gensler, the massive architecture firm with offices all over the world. She recently branched out on her own, with her Tatiermo Design architecture firm that will design primarily restaurants, hotels and mixed-use high-rises.
Guillermo, 33 and a Wharton Business School graduate, moved to Houston for an energy-industry job. He’s now head of the midstream advisory group at Macquarie Capital.
On April 29, the couple wed in an elaborate ceremony with friends and family — many of them Princess Tatiana’s royal relatives: aunts, uncles and cousins from monarchies all over the world. Because so many people would be coming to Mexico City from elsewhere, their families hosted people as they arrived in guided tours of historical and cultural sites during the day and group dinners in the evening.
“When we decided to have it in Mexico, it was our first realization that we cannot ask people to come all the way here and not show a little bit more of what Mexico has to offer,” he said. “Everybody has an idea of what it looks like … people were surprised at the food, culture and history. There’s a lot to see and do.”
The Russian Orthodox ceremony — Tatiana is Russian Orthodox, and Guillermo is Catholic — has two parts. First, the bride and groom meet for their betrothal at the door of the church, where they ask to be united by Christ. Then, the actual marriage is conducted in the center of the church, with those attending standing throughout the hour-long ceremony, Guillermo explained.
The couple exchanges rings three times before putting them on their fingers, signifying that in married life the weakness of one is compensated by the strength of the other — the imperfections of one by the perfection of the other.
There’s a crowning ritual in which the couple offer their love to God freely and voluntarily; three prayers are said, and then the crowns are placed over the heads of the bride and groom to symbolize their place in God’s kingdom.
The princess is the greatgranddaughter of the last emperor and empress of Austria, Karl and Zita of the Habsburg dynasty that ruled parts of Europe for nearly 600 years. They were deposed in 1918 at the end of World War I. Princess Tatiana’s mother, Princess Anna Maria Galitzine, an archduchess, was born in Belgium, where they still have family.
Tatiana’s father, Prince Piotr Galitzine, is of Russian aristocracy; royals there fled the country in the Russian Revolution.
Princess Tatiana’s parents live in Houston, where her father is the chairman and CEO of TMK IPISCO, a Russianowned gas and pipe-making company. He moved the firm’s U.S. headquarters to Houston from suburban Chicago in 2013.
Two of Tatiana’s sisters — Xenia Galitzine de Matta and Maria Galitzine — live in Houston as well. Her other siblings, a sister and two brothers, live in London, Chicago and Philadelphia.
Guillermo’s parents, Guillermo Sierra Sr. and Rosalba Uribe, also live in Houston, and his father, a developer, owns Europa Homes.
Guillermo said he’s from a normal, middle-class family in Mexico, but it wasn’t meeting and marrying a princess that changed his life so much — it was getting a scholarship to attend the University of Pennsylvania’s prestigious business school that gave him so many career opportunities.
Tatiana and Guillermo met by chance; she was standing on the sidewalk outside the downtown Houston building where she worked. Guillermo worked nearby and was headed to his bank for personal business. Crossing the street, he spotted the willowy blonde.
He struck up a conversation and invited her to have coffee with him. From there, they had dinner and discovered they had dozens of mutual friends.
But Tatiana, who has lived all over the world, was already planning her next move — to London. Their courtship was quick and, after six weeks, Guillermo told her that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her.
A more formal proposal with a dazzling, round 4.5-carat diamond ring came soon after.
“We were engaged a year and a half, and of that we spent a year, five months and 29 days planning the wedding,” Guillermo said, laughing. “And when I say ‘we,’ I mean me and her mom.”
Tatiana and Guillermo wed in April, and two of her siblings — a brother and a sister — got married in June and September, respectively.
“We were so happy when Sunday brunch came along,” Tatiana said of the week of events leading up to their nuptials. “My poor mother. It didn’t help that my brother (Dimitri) got married two months after that in Belgium and a sister (Maria) got married two months after that in Houston.”
Though Tatiana grew up knowing her family’s place in world history, she and her family always downplayed their famous family connections.
“My life is completely normal unless we are invited to royal weddings. My mail sometimes says ‘Princess Tatiana.’ What was weird was when I went from ‘Princess’ to ‘Mrs.’ I had been a princess all my life,” she said.