Monday, June 21, 2010

The Princes, The Princess and the Ex-Girlfriend

It's been a busy few days for royalty watchers. On Saturday, Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden married her long-time boyfriend, a very normal-looking guy who's now known as Prince Daniel, Duke of something-or-other. The interesting thing about him is that he is a commoner, which apparently was initially unacceptable to Victoria's father, the current King of Sweden. In this case, commoner doesn't mean "un-royal but titled individual from one of the country's most aristocratic families," as it did in the case of Lady Diana Spencer. No, this is a regular working guy who met the Princess when she hired him as her personal trainer. I read that he's been given a so-called royal makeover, with lessons on Swedish history, how to look cool in public, who curtsies to who, and who knows what else, all to turn him into someone who is acceptable as a royal consort.

Although Victoria has a younger brother, in Sweden the King's eldest child inherits the throne, male or female, so Prince Daniel is now the equivalent of England's Prince Philip, and eventually he'll be married to the Queen of Sweden. I saw a short video clip of his toast at the wedding reception, in which he referred to himself as the frog who married a princess, which I thought was very charming. And even though we don't hear much about the Swedish royals in this country, they were big news this week-end, which is how I now know that Victoria is the first of the King's three children to marry. Her younger brother recently dumped his fiancée and took up with a reality TV star, and her younger sister broke up with her fiancé because he was cheating on her with a college student, so don't think for a moment that the Swedes aren't getting just as much scandal from their royals as the British get from the House of Windsor.

And speaking of royals who've recently changed their relationship status, apparently Prince Harry and Chelsey Davy have broken up again.

Finally, today is Prince William's 28th birthday, so Happy Birthday, Wills. Are you ever going to make an honest woman out of "waitey Katie"?

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