Almost 300 pounds of clothing, 20 ceremonial guards, one gorgeous queen. Our style director, Mark Connolly, proves that there's grit beneath the glam

The first thing I said to Her Majesty Queen Rania? "God, now that's a cool jeep." It was 4:32 P.M. on a May afternoon, and the queen's helicopter had just landed not far from the colonnades at our cover shoot in Jerash's ancient ruins, in northern Jordan. From the chopper, she drove herself 600 feet in this badass boxy black Mercedes to meet me and photographer Jonas Karlsson. My immediate thought was, Argh, should I have said that? but she laughed it off and stepped into the tricked-out "queenmobile" trailer in which I had left a dozen dress options (more on that in a bit). Eight minutes later we were shooting. The queen arrived with hair and makeup already done (by Serge Norman and Mary Greenwell, no less), and oh was she lovely! Queen Rania is polite, charming, and as beautiful as you'd expect. We talked about her four children and her recent trip to South Africa during the shoot, and she tapped away the whole time on her BlackBerry.

1. The day was hot and sunny, but there was no time for sunscreen and the crew ended up lobster faced.

2. Jonas and I had scouted Jerash's columns the day before—Jerash is an astonishing Roman spectacle—and since Queen Rania was adamant that our shoot not deter tourists, her bodyguards discreetly redirected the crowds so that neither their experience (nor ours) would be disturbed.

Now on to the good stuff—the dresses! I prepared for this shoot right after I returned from India, where we shot this issue's fashion story, and no sooner had I stepped off the plane from Jodhpur than I began requesting dresses for Queen Rania from Zac Posen, Chanel, YSL, Giambattista Valli . . . all the houses that do that regal glamour thing well. Our shoot coincided with the Cannes Film Festival, which meant that much of the world's gown supply was being held hostage by celebrity stylists: It was the queen versus the movie stars. Jordanian mores require that a woman's shoulders remain covered, which further limited my choices, but I found enough possibilities to fill five 50-pound trunks with 18 gowns as well as blouses and pants.

3. We did several cover tries with different gowns, but in the end we went with the shot of Queen Rania wearing the silver-gray silk-and-chiffon Elie Saab from her personal collection.

4. Jonas wanted an ethereal image of the queen standing on a raised platform, so four palace carpenters had spent the morning building a three-foot base.

5. I hid behind the column, holding the dress up and releasing it to make it look windblown.

6. Between takes, the queen chatted with the 20 ceremonial guards Jonas had recruited for this picture. Since they spend a lot of time around royals, the guards schooled us on protocol. One told me that I wasn't to turn my back to the queen. Of course I forgot and, while helping her out of the queenmobile after a dress change, wound up showing her, shall we say, my bad side. Thank God the guns weren't loaded.
-As told to Eimear Lynch