Golf time

Victoria and Daniel are spending couple of days with Daniel's parents now and they are photographed while they are playing golf with friends. I love this photo and it seems honeymoon is not over for them :)

They are home!

Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel landed to Stockholm yesterday evening at 21:00.According to Aftonbladet article they will visit Öland and Prince Daniel's parents in Ockelbo before they have their first official duty on 21st of August. It's nice to see them home.

The speech of the Archbishop

To live a good life, you must be allowed to take responsibility, to have an influence.

We wish each of us the possibility of making our way through life successfully and of having control over our lives.
Your situation, Crown Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel (we can now use this title for the first time), is both shared and unique. You'll be taking on tasks that you won't be able to turn down — but that you can influence. One of you has had many years to prepare for and live this life — and one of you only a few. You won't have complete control over your lives — but you will successfully make your way through life if you keep your focus on people other than yourselves, on wider contexts, on society, on family and on the future. "Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ."

We wish each of us the possibility of being needed and useful.
There are several stages of usefulness. Each individual needs to think several steps ahead. What will be the consequences of this choice or that choice? What am I capable of — and what should I do even though I wonder whether I can actually do it? None of us is indispensable, not even a crown princess or a prince. But we are still needed. We can all be called into question, not least if we are public figures. Criticism costs nothing, not even when it's spiteful. But we all still need to try to make a positive contribution using our talents.

Your usefulness in major contexts will perhaps be clearest when you can stand up for important values that are under threat, such as gratitude, a sense of belonging during crises and losses, hopefulness in troubled times, and indignation about and commitment to combating breaches of human rights. Your significance to loyalty and fellowship in society, with free scope for true, vital democracy and debate, may be great.

At the same time, you can easily be reduced to people who add sparkle to an event, or to lowest common denominators. A great deal may be expected of you that fundamentally does not seem that important to you. May you in such cases be able to maintain your curiosity and enthusiasm!

So, you are now husband and wife. Privately, you have set up a 'refuge' that has now been confirmed as publicly as is possible. Through marriage, a bridge is forged between the most personal side of your lives and the public side. "Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate." We who all over world are following your wedding are responsible for helping you with this. We have prayed for you, we will carry on praying for you and thinking of you, and will help you to stay together — in the same way as we have done at all other weddings we have been to, and will attend in the future!

Within the family, space can be made for openness and reciprocity that could never be accommodated in public life, with its pressure to perform. Within the family you have each other, because you love each other and want this sense of belonging together to form a reliable and steadfast foundation for your lives. You do not need to prove anything to each other — but you do need to focus on each other. "Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves. Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn."

We wish each of us the possibility of being carried and of accepting help.
Independence, self-determination and freedom are important concepts. Nobody should need to crawl; nobody should need to be subservient. Feeling that you´re in someone's debt is difficult.

Being the underdog means being on shaky ground if you cannot trust the other person. In society at large and in public life, this is often the reality. In a close relationship, when everything works out as we wish, things are different. Mutual, secure, loving dependence on the other person gives us a sense of well-being. This is what the two of you are experiencing. May your refuge remain free and protected, but still welcoming for those you hold dearest!

And a lifetime can be long. A strong person can become weak, and a person born weak can become strong. This is something you will have to deal with in your family. A person who feels secure has the courage to be carried!

In a close and trusting relationship, you can pray together and individually. Use this power!

"... love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God." God manifests Himself through love. And, according to our faith, he also manifests Himself to those who do not believe they know God!

We wish each of us the possibility of getting a second chance when we fall short.
I do not believe that anyone lives up to what he or she would ideally like to live up to. We all have our shortcomings. The excellent ethical principles of loving your neighbour as yourself and doing to others what you would have them do to you are beautiful, but they´re difficult. Sometimes, when you look at all your shortcomings, the self-contempt becomes overwhelming.

You are now married. You have come so close to each other that you know that your love is mutual and that you have the capacity to forgive each other. This means that your love for each other can also accommodate failure and weakness!

You have not done anything to deserve life. Nobody has. It is given to us. The air, the existence of the universe and relative equilibrium, memories and hopes. It is given to us by God, who wants good things for us. The God of Love. Through what Jesus did for us, we know that God forgives and believes that we deserve to live and get another chance, even though we fall short!

We wish each of us the possibility of making our way through life successfully and of having control over our lives. We wish each of us the possibility of being needed and useful. We wish each of us the possibility of being carried and of accepting help. We wish each of us the possibility of getting a second chance when we fall short. We wish the two of you all this!

"I pray that [the Father] out of his glorious riches ... may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. Stand firm and be constantly rooted in him."

Honeymoon

Crown Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel are on their honeymoon at Bora Bora.

Honeymoon

Victoria and Daniel are spending their honeymoon in Tahiti and gave an exclusive interview to Expressen. They mentioned that they are very happy to able to spend time all alone together and thankfull to Swedish people for celebrating their marriage vividly.

The Wedding Cake

The cake
The white four-leaf clover-shaped wedding cake is 330 cm high, and is made up of 11 tiers. A 125 cm daquise base (a soft almond meringue made from almond flour) is topped with chocolate crisp, followed by a fragilité base (a soft almond meringue made from almond paste). On top of this is a champagne mousse with a wild strawberry curd centre. This is followed by a layer of wild strawberry compote. Champagne mousse and daquise base are then layered, finishing off with champagne mousse.

Floral decorations made from pulled sugar (caramel)
The care is decorated with 100 handmade roses and 40 lilies, made from caramel.

Decoration base
The top of the cake is decorated with a wavy gelatine sugar layer. On top of this are edible triangular spirals in transparent gold and blue, made from isomalt sugar. At the top, the diameter of the cake is 25 cm. Here, the Crown Princess Couple´s monogram is reproduced in cast caramel.

Four-leaf clovers on the sides
The sides of the cake are decorated with four-leaf clovers, symbolising the Crown Princess Couple and their wedding.

Organic ingredients
More than 95 percent of the ingredients used to make the cake are organic. The few exceptions include the wild strawberries.

Weight 250 kg
The cake weighs 250 kg. The stand weighs just as much again.

High Quality Photos

Blogger can't support really high quality photos and personally I hate small photos so I uploaded them to photo hosting service. You can see them bigger by clicking on them. Enjoy!

Behind the scenes

The attendants´ attire

Bridesmaids are wearing full-length pearl white dresses in silk organza with short sleeves and roll collars. They are also wearing white ballet slippers.

The page boys are wearing sailor suits, which is a Bernadotte family tradition.
Their bouquets are lilies of the valley.

The Bridal Bouquet

The Crown Princess´s bridal bouquet consists of a mixture of traditional Swedish summer flowers and more exotic flowers. All the flowers are white, and the bouquet is tied into a free teardrop shape.

The Crown Princess´s bridal bouquet includes the following flowers: lily of the valley, rose, phalaenopsis orchid, peony, clematis, cosmos, wax flower, sweet pea, dicentra formosa, Mårbacka pelargonium, Amazon lily, gardenia, azalea, bleeding heart and the traditional myrtle from Sofiero.

The Bridal Veil

The Crown Princess is wearing Queen Sofia's lace veil. It is the same veil that was worn by Crown Princess Victoria's mother, Queen Silvia, at her marriage to King Carl Gustaf in 1976.
This veil was given by Queen Sofia to her youngest son, Prince Eugen. Prince Eugen then passed the veil on to Princess Sibylla, who wore it under a garland of myrtle at her marriage to Prince Gustaf Adolf in Koburg in 1932.

Queen Sofia's veil was also worn by the Princesses Désirée in 1964, Margaretha in 1964 and Christina in 1974.

Behind the Crown Princess hair and make up is Peter Andersson and Linda Öhrnström.

The Cameo Tiara

The cameo tiara

The word "cameo" means a precious stone decorated in raised relief. The tiara is made of gold, pearls and cameos. The central cameo depicts Cupid and Psyche from Greek mythology.
The seven cameos were not originally carved for the tiara, as can be seen in their different shapes and colours.
The cameo tiara was also worn by Queen Silvia at the royal wedding on 19 June 1976.

The Crown Princess is therefore continuing a tradition started by Princess Birgitta. She was the first Haga Princes to marry, and chose the cameo tiara for her wedding in 1961 to Prince Johann Georg of Hohenzollern.

Princess Désirée also chose the same tiara as her bridal crown when she married Baron Niclas Silfverschiöld in 1964.

Queen Josefina's legacy

The tiara was probably a gift from Napoleon to his wife, Empress Josephine, in 1809. It was made at the Nitot studio in Paris.
The empress bequeathed the tiara to her granddaughter Josefina who, on 19 June 1823, became the Crown Princess of Sweden when she married Crown Prince Oscar (the future King Oscar I).

With the next generation of the Bernadotte dynasty, the tiara was owned by Queen Josefina's daughter Princess Eugénie, who in turn left the tiara to her nephew Prince Eugen.

The prince gave the tiara to Princess Sibylla on her marriage to Prince Gustaf Adolf in 1932. The King was left the tiara by his mother.

Crown Princess Victoria Wedding Dress

Crown Princess Victoria's wedding dress was designed by Pär Engsheden.
It is made of cream-coloured duchess silk satin, with short sleeves and a turned-out collar, which follows the rounded neckline. The dress has a v-shaped back with covered buttons. The sash at the waist is buttoned up at the back.

The train is edged with a border, fastened at the waist, and has the same shape as the veil. The train is almost five metres long.

The Crown Princess's shoes are made up in the same fabric as her dress.