The Tradition Sweden's Crown Princess Victoria Broke On Her Wedding Day
Sweden's future queen Crown Princess Victoria is familiar with breaking tradition. When the future monarch was born, she was not originally set to ascend to the throne. The first-born child of King Carl XVI Gustav and Queen Silvia, the princess was born in 1977, according to Britannica, but it seemed that her brother, Prince Carl Philip Edmund Bertil, would be the next in line for the Swedish crown when he was born in 1979.
Sweden shook up the line of succession by passing the retroactive Act of Succession in 1980 (via Oxford Constitutional Law). The law established that the eldest child would become the reigning monarch, regardless of gender. As CNN reported, Sweeden was one of the first places to change its line of succession laws, after Denmark who changed the law in 1953. Since the law was enacted, Crown Princess Victoria has been in line to inherit the Swedish throne.
But that's far from the only way that Sweden's princess has changed the status quo. The future queen has made plenty of personal decisions that have swerved from the traditional paths set by her ancestors, including one special Swedish tradition on her royal wedding day.
Crown Princess Victoria walked with her father down the aisle on her wedding day
In Sweden, the cultural custom holds that the bride and groom walk together down the aisle on their wedding day. According to Your Living City, the egalitarian Swedish society rarely sees fathers give daughters away at weddings. But Crown Princess Victoria chose to stray from Swedish tradition on her wedding day with Daniel Westling, having her father walk her down the aisle.
The decision came with skepticism from the Swedish church. Archbishop Anders Wejryd married the couple on June 19, 2010, but not without giving his opinion about the crown princess's decision to walk with her father on her wedding day. In a statement, Wejryd said that "Being given away is a new phenomenon which occasionally occurs in the Church of Sweden. I usually advise against it, as our marriage ceremony is so clear on the subject of the spouses' equality. The couple know where I stand on this matter."
The Swedish Royal Court defended Crown Princess Victoria's decision to walk with her father, saying that her father, the king, was "leading the heir to the nation's throne to the altar — and to the man who has been accepted," according to the Irish Times.
The crown princess seemed to compromise on her wedding day with this decision
Though Crown Princess Victoria's decision to walk down the aisle with her father was met with some dismay, the future monarch did not completely brush off Swedish tradition on the day of her wedding. As Hello! reported, Crown Princess Victoria and her father, King Carl XVI Gustaf only walked about halfway down the aisle, meeting Prince Daniel to walk the rest of the way with his future wife.
While Swedish custom usually sees brides and grooms walking side-by-side the entire way down the aisle, the crown princess could have been influenced by her time in other countries to make the decision to walk alongside her father partway down the aisle. Crown Princess Victoria studied at the Université Catholique de l'Ouest in Angers, France, from 1996 to 1997 (via Britannica). The crown princess later enrolled at Yale University in the United States in 1998, as documented by an Associated Press article from the time. She studied political science and history in New Haven, Connecticut, according to Britannica. Regardless of how she came to the decision to walk with her father down the aisle, it surely shook up Swedish traditions.