Friday 31 May 2013

Foreign guests for Princess Madeleine’s wedding

With eight days to go before Princess Madeleine of Sweden marries Christopher O’Neill in the Palace Church in Stockholm, the Swedish royal court has not yet released a list of guests, but this is expected to appear in a few days. However, some guests are already known.
The Norwegian royal court has confirmed that the Crown Prince and Crown Princess, as well as Princess Märtha Louise and Ari Behn, will attend the wedding, and the Danish court has announced the presence of Crown Prince Frederik and Crown Princess Mary, Prince Joachim and Princess Marie, and Princess Benedikte. The presence of Prince Joachim is quite unusual, as he is normally the one who stays behind in Denmark to act as guardian of the realm when other members of the family attend royal events abroad, but in this case Queen Margrethe herself will remain in Denmark.
According to the British magazine Majesty Prince Edward of Britain and his wife Sophie (aka the Earl and Countess of Wessex) will also attend the wedding, which seems plausible as they are the usual British representatives at foreign weddings.
As this is a much smaller event than the wedding of Crown Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel in 2010, and not a state occasion like that wedding, fewer guests have been invited and fewer official representatives from Sweden and abroad will be present. There is thus no reason to expect for instance Japanese or Thai royalty or the presidents of Finland and Iceland; the foreign royal guests will probably be restricted to the reigning European royal families and possibly a few members of non-reigning dynasties such as Greece, Hohenzollern and Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and possibly Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg and Bavaria.

2 comments:

  1. What is the Swedish royal house's connection to the former royal family of Bavaria? I'm aware that a Leopold Prinz von Bayern stood as godfather to Prince Carl Philip, but I was unable to find any explanation other than that he was a friend of King Carl Gustaf.

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    Replies
    1. There is a relationship through Queen Josephina (whose mother, Duchess Auguste Amalie of Leuchtenberg, was the daughter of King Maximilian I Joseph, making Duke Franz a sixth cousin of King Carl Gustaf's father), but the relationship between Prince Leopold and King Carl Gustaf is one based on friendship rather than blood. All King Carl Gustaf's children attended the wedding of Prince Leopold's son, making it likely that some of the Leopold family have also been invited to next week's wedding.

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