Sweden's Royal Romances (and scandals)

Sweden has got royal wedding fever, and it's got it bad: when Victoria, 32, first in line to her country's throne (and 196th in line to ours), marries on June 19 after a courtship of eight years, it will mark the culmination of Love Stockholm, a two-week extravaganza of music, theatre, food and outside events that begins on June 6, National Day. At least half a million people are expected to throng the cobbled streets of the capital to watch the celebrations, which will include a voyage by the newlyweds across Stockholm Bay on the royal barge Vasaorden. The date coincides with the 200th anniversary of Sweden's reigning Bernadotte dynasty. There has been nothing this big in the royal world since Charles and Diana walked down the aisle of St Paul's in 1981 — though we all know how that one ended.

The souvenir sellers of Gamla Stan, the old town in which the palace lies, are already laying out their merchandise. Want a Victoria and Daniel fridge magnet? Or a Sweden Year of Love snow globe? "We're getting the T-shirts in next week," says an Indian shopkeeper. Sales so far have been mostly to foreigners, but he's optimistic Swedes will start to buy as the great day approaches.

Not everything has been going to plan on the domestic front, however. First, Victoria's brother, Carl Philip, 31, ended a decade-long relationship with his girlfriend, Emma Pernald, and began stepping out with Sofia Hellqvist, a glamour model and reality-TV star who posed for a shoot wearing nothing but a G-string and an artistically arranged python. Then came an even worse moment: with weeks to go until Victoria's big day, her glamorous younger sister, Madeleine, 27, once spoken of as a match for Prince William, stunned Swedes by breaking off her engagement to her dashing lawyer fiancé, Jonas Bergström, after he reportedly two-timed her with Tora Uppström Berg, a Norwegian former handball star, now studying at university in Bournemouth.

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This is a rather sad indication of how low things have sunk among Europe's modern royals. As someone recently noted on a related issue; if they keep marrying commoners at this rate, incest and inbreeding won't be an excuse for their dysfunctional behavior much longer.