Royal You Should Know About: Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden
Official Title: HRH Crown Princess Victoria, also holds the title the Duchess of Västergötland
Place in Order of Precedence: Crown Princess Victoria is the first in line for the Swedish throne, which is why she is referred to as Crown Princess, not just Princess.
Romantic History: The Crown Princess married Daniel Westling on June 29, 2010 in Storkyrkan in Stockholm. Daniel’s title is now Prince Daniel, Duke of Västergötland. Before getting married, he was a personal trainer and ran three different gyms, and actually met Victoria when he was her trainer!
Children: Princess Estelle (8) and Prince Oscar (4)
Why You Want to Have Tea with Her:
One of the rising female monarchs across Europe, she has truly devoted her life to preparing for her role. Victoria is incredibly well educated in government and diplomacy, having studied at the Catholic University of the West in France for a year, before moving to New Haven and studying at Political Science and History at Yale. While she was at Yale, she did two internships at the UN, and a third at the Swedish Embassy in DC. She then completed studies in conflict resolution and international peace-building. In 2003, She’s done customized courses of study that included visits to Swedish businesses, agriculture and forestry, as well as completing basic soldier training at SWEDINT (the Swedish Armed Forces International Centre). In 2006, she enrolled in the Ministry for Foreign Affairs' Diplomat Program, running from September 2006 to June 2007. The program is a training program for young future diplomats and gives an insight to the ministry's work, Swedish foreign and security policies and Sweden's relations with the rest of the world. While she studied in various places over more than a decade of her life, in June 2009, she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from Uppsala University.She speaks Swedish, English, French and German.
So Victoria’s resume is obviously impressive, but among all of those achievements, she also overcame some incredible challenges. She has dyslexia, and in 1997 also confirmed (after a lot of public speculation) that she was also suffering from anorexia. Part of the reason she went abroad to study at Yale was so that she could also receive treatment. She has been remarkably candid about her struggles and fully recovered. Victoria also suffers from Victoria suffers from prosopagnosia, which makes it difficult to recognize familiar faces, something that must be a huge challenge in diplomacy and government. In spite of, and probably in part because of her challenges, she is widely loved and respected.
Victoria also has a very fun sense of style and some of the best gowns of any royal in Europe. She recently celebrated her 10th wedding anniversary with Prince Daniel and released a set of dreamy images that perfectly capture how well she blends modern and traditional royal values.