DENMARK: As backdrops to fairytales go, Copenhagen in spring is hard to beat. Throw in the wedding of a crown prince and a beautiful girl from a faraway land, and you have a plot that Hans Christian Andersen might have been proud of.
And so it was that Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark married Mary Donaldson from Tasmania at Copenhagen Cathedral yesterday afternoon, while the entire country celebrated with a genuine happiness that the assembled representatives of other European royalty must have envied.
From early yesterday morning hundreds of thousands of Danes took up positions around the city.
Farmers from all over Denmark served a breakfast of eggs, bacon and sausages to passers by at Radhuspladsen, the main square in front of the city hall.
Cars and even bicycles, of which there are thousands, were banned from inner-city streets from mid-morning.
All round the country, people have been toasting the bride and groom in their own way. Indeed, representatives of the farming community suggested a self-imposed ban on manure-spreading as a mark of respect, despite warnings from experts of a detrimental effect on crops.
The festive atmosphere which had been building over the past month reached fever pitch earlier this week as guests began to arrive from around the world. Even the body blow of being dumped out of the qualifying round of the Eurovision Song Contest could not dampen spirits.
The Donaldsons - the bride's father, stepmother, sisters and brother - were the centre of attention as soon as they touched down on Danish soil and were the shell-shocked recipients of the "royal" treatment as they attended private parties, a rock concert and a yacht race in their honour.
And so just before five yesterday afternoon, the happy couple said "Ja" in response to the Bishop of Copenhagen's questions and became man and wife.
Along the way Scandinavia, and indeed Europe, lost one of its most eligible bachelors. Frederik (35), something of a reformed playboy with a liking for fast cars and pop-star girlfriends, is a trained air force pilot and a former navy SEAL with a Harvard education.
Despite this, even he shed a few tears as his bride made her way up the aisle attended by her father, John, a Scotsman complete with kilt, whose day job is lecturing in maths at Hobart University.
The new crown princess, a 32-year-old law graduate who was first introduced to Frederik in a Sydney bar during the 2000 Olympics, wore a cream duchess satin dress, which included lace made by Irish nuns in Connacht almost 100 years ago.
The veil, also made of lace manufactured by the same nuns, was a gift to Crown Princess Margret of Sweden. It has since been used at eight other royal weddings around Europe from England in 1905 to Greece in 1999.
However, this was the first time that a non-blood relative to the original owner had worn the garment.