Princess set to marry gym owner

**Gaoshang Xiongshou** · 03-12-2009, 06:55 AM

CROWN Princess Victoria, the next in line to Sweden's throne, has become engaged to her long-standing boyfriend, a 35-year-old gym owner.

Reports that Victoria, 31, and her boyfriend, Daniel Westling, would marry have circulated for several years. The court said the royal wedding was planned for next year.

"Crown Princess Victoria and Daniel are engaged and are due to be married in the early summer of 2010," a court spokeswoman said. "Daniel will have the title of Prince Daniel, Duke of Vastergotland."

Sweden's monarch traces its origins back more than 1,000 years, though the current royal family assumed the throne in the early 19th century, when French marshal Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte became King. He had been elected as successor to the Swedish throne by Sweden's parliament in 1810.

Carl XVI Gustaf has been King of Sweden since 1973. The last Swedish royal wedding was in 1976 when he married German-born Silvia Sommerlath, whom he met at the Munich Olympics in 1972.

Sweden is a constitutional monarchy and the king has no political power, though he is popular in the Nordic country. Victoria became the heir apparent in 1980 by a constitutional reform that meant that the throne would be inherited by the monarch's eldest child without regard to gender.