Photo by: Håkan Dahlström (CC BY)
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Flickr Favorite: Victoria, Crown Princess of Sweden
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For those who watched the royal wedding procession of Crown Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel through the streets of Stockholm last year, you would have noticed a couple Secret Service agents dressed in black suits, white shirts, black ties, and black sunglasses jogging alongside their horse-drawn carriage.
Fast forward a year and a group of locals decided to reenact that job in what they called SäpoJoggen. So on June 19th at exactly 4:40pm, the group of roughly 100 joggers started from the palace, following the same route (from Slottsbacken – Kungsträdgårdsgatan – Hamngatan – Kungsgatan – Strandvägen – Djurgården), and jogging at the same pace the officers did last year, all dressed as agents
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Outside our office a couple of hours ago: dress rehearsal for the royal wedding tomorrow. No royals today, though — only a military parade and a few curious tourists (and a very scruffy-looking guy sitting in a very fancy horse-drawn carriage, where I suppose some royals will be sitting tomorrow). Good thing that they’re rehearsing, ’cause they weren’t exactly the most well coordinated group of people I’ve seen. Hoping for better sense of rhythm on the big day tomorrow.
And a live stream of the view from our office is also up and runnig — thanks to a lot of help from our IT guru, Janne! Now you can all just sit back in front of your screen and watch the wedding cortège and cheering crowds pass outside our office tomorrow afternoon. The cortège is set to start after the wedding ceremony, at 4:40 p.m. (16:40) CET. Enjoy! (You can also watch it here.)
I’m a bit scared of big crowds myself, so I prefer to watch it all from the safety of my own home. So… see you online tomorrow! Hopefully with no rain spoiling the view!
Touch our webcam, and you’re toast!
/Emma
It seems that the secrecy surrounding many of the details of the upcoming royal wedding is very efficient. People and media can’t stop speculating about who has designed Victoria’s dress, what her bridal bouquet will look like, what will be served at the dinner, what shoes Victoria will wear…
On a train journey yesterday, I flicked through Göteborgs-Posten’s contribution to the guessing game. A whole supplement about what the flowers might look like if some local florists would decide, how the royal wedding dinner could be composed (this was a very advanced guess, as this fake royal menu was actually created by the real wedding chef, Stefano Catenacci), and so on.
Then I decided to do a bit of dreaming myself. What would I want my wedding to look like if I were a princess getting married to a commoner?
As I, along with a majority of Swedes, am not religious I would get married outdoors and not by a priest. Perhaps in this little love garden below, Kärleksstigen (the path of love), which is one of the show gardens in the Sommarsalongen exhibition at Ulriksdal Palace outside of Stockholm.
Click the image for a larger version of Kärleksstigen (the path of love).
I would wear one of Sandra Backlund’s fabulous knitted creations. I’d have all my staff pick every Forget-me-not they could find, to make a huge blue bouquet. We would eat fresh shellfish flown in straight from a fishing boat on the Swedish west coast, followed by a strawberry cake made by my grandmother. (Yes, I do realize that she would have to make a whole lot of cake, but she’s a tough 91-year-old.)
Oh, right, I’d need a groom as well. As a princess, I imagine that men would be lining up to marry me. I would pick someone with a special talent. I could think of a few candidates: writer Jonas Hassen Khemiri, actor Michael Nyqvist or why not our own soccer star, Zlatan Ibrahimovic.
Finally, in my imaginary royal world, I would by a small house to live in with my talented husband, give away my fortune to charity and live happily ever after.
Oops, I think I’m suffering from royal wedding overload! Am I about to join the republicans?
Haga Palace, Victoria’s and Daniel’s future home. Photo: sivandsivand/Flickr
How does it work when Victoria, our crown princess, and her husband to be, Daniel Westling, refurbish their future home? In practice, I mean. If we disregard the at times heated public debate regarding the restricted access to the previously public space around Haga Palace, I can just imagine the heated royal debate about the ongoing refurbishment? What makes an interior royal enough to be fit for a future queen? Does Victoria have the final say?
There I am, having trouble deciding whether to choose an enamel or a plastic bathtub, or a toilet of brand X or brand Y for our revamped bathroom. Seems like quite trivial and meaningless decisions in comparison. Having given up my dreams of becoming a princess about 25 years ago, I’m pretty sure there will be no royal pee flowing through my toilet.
My husband and I moved into our house three years ago. Fantastic. The space. The garden. The sauna! But the projects never end. There are about a million decisions to be made all the time – color, tiles, furniture…
And even if Victoria and Daniel don’t have to worry about money, they still have to make a lot of decisions. Or don’t they? Maybe they have an interior designer working full time to make Haga Palace (where the king, Carl XVI Gustav, was actually born and spent his first few years) royal enough. I can’t imagine the royal couple driving around to Stockholm’s numerous DIY shops to pick out royal bathtubs and toilets. But who knows?
Don’t get the wrong impression from my ranting; I’m very pleased not to be royal. Do you know why? Whichever toilet I choose, it doesn’t have to be approved by the Swedish National Heritage Board. Victoria’s does.
The Heritage Board probably wouldn’t approve of hacking through the floor to build a bookshelf like we’ve done at home.
/Emma