Yesterday, Prince Carl Philip of Sweden and Sofia Hellqvist took another big step toward marriage: their marriage banns were officially read in Stockholm, and the entire family gathered for the event.

Queen Silvia wore pearls for the service, which was held at the Royal Chapel in Stockholm. You can read the program from the service (in Swedish) here.

Crown Princess Victoria wore a diamond necklace she’s had in her jewelry box for more than a decade, diamond stud earrings, a brooch, and a rather extravagant Philip Treacy hat.

Princess Madeleine wore a pair of earrings that I’d love to see a bit closer, plus bracelets and a bit of birthday wrapping perched atop her head.

After the church service, the bride and groom met with government officials and received wedding presents. Carl Philip and Sofia are officially ready to paddle a marital canoe, it seems.

They’re also ready to start a rock band. This photo gives a better look at the major pieces of visible jewelry Sofia wore: a glittering bracelet, along with her usual green Project Playground bracelet.

Photo: Kungahuset.se

After the service, the Swedish royal family and the Hellqvists posed for a large family picture. Click here to view a high quality version.

Photo: Mattias Edwall, Kungahuset.se

The Marshal of the Realm also used the occasion to make the official announcement: after the wedding, the bride will officially become HRH Princess Sofia, Duchess of Värmland.

Photo: Mattias Edwall, Kungahuset.se

Want more info about June 13’s Swedish royal wedding? Read our previous posts here!

Prince Carl Philip and Sofia Hellqvist (Photo copyright Erika Gerdemark/kungahuset.se)

We’re only about two months out from a glittering Scandinavian royal wedding, everyone! Here are the latest details that have been announced about the upcoming nuptials of Prince Carl Philip of Sweden and Sofia Hellqvist:

SVT will televise the wedding ceremony. This is great news for royal watchers around the world! SVT aired the weddings of both of Carl Philip’s sisters, and they also streamed the ceremonies live online. The footage was not geoblocked, so people around the globe could enjoy the festivities. (To get a glimpse of what an SVT-televised royal wedding looks like, check out the footage from Victoria’s wedding embedded above.) The court also announced that TT News Agency will be the official photographers of the wedding.

The officiants have been announced. The wedding will be performed in the Royal Chapel by the Chief Court Chaplain, the Right Reverend Lars-Göran Lönnermark, and Reverend Michael Bjerkhagen, Court Chaplain and Rector of the Royal Court Parish. They’re the same clergy who officiated Princess Madeleine’s wedding in 2013 and conducted Princess Lilian’s funeral earlier the same year.

Prince Couple’s monogram (Copyright kungahuset.se)

The couple’s new monogram has been released. The monogram was designed by Carl Philip and Vladimir Sagerlund, and it’s very curly, featuring the couple’s entwined and mirrored initials surmounted by Carl Philip’s ducal crown.

Queen Margrethe II of Denmark has been invited. The invitations have been sent out — you can see what they look like here! A purported guest list was recently released by Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet, but they retracted it after the Royal Court declared that it was inaccurate. We won’t know who most of the guests are until closer to the date, as individual royals confirm their attendance, but we already have one confirmed invited guest: Queen Margrethe, who also happens to be one of Carl Philip’s godparents. (His other living godparents are Prince Leopold of Bavaria and his aunt, Princess Birgitta.)

Prince Carl Philip and Sofia Hellqvist (Photo copyright Erika Gerdemark/kungahuset.se)

No gifts, please! Carl Philip and Sofia are reportedly requesting that anyone wishing to send gifts should donate to the newly created Prince Couple’s Foundation, which will work with causes related to children and education.

The banns have been scheduled. The couple’s marriage banns will be read on May 17 at the Royal Chapel. A reception will be held afterward. The banns are the church’s official announcement that the couple intends to marry; in the olden days, they were read ahead of time so that anyone who knew of any reason why the couple couldn’t legally marry had time to register their objections. (Probably not going to be an issue here!)

As we draw even closer to this year’s royal wedding in Sweden, the court is releasing new details about the weekend’s events. Get excited — we’re going to see some major jewels this June!

The wedding will be held on the afternoon of June 13, with a reception that evening. Even though they start in the afternoon, these weddings are generally white tie, because they last long into the nighttime hours. I’m pretty confident we’re looking at white tie and tiaras for this wedding, just as we saw at Victoria’s and Madeleine’s.

The night before the wedding, a private dinner will be held. We might see photos of the guests arriving for the event, but there likely won’t be any pictures from inside.

On the 13th, which is a Saturday, the wedding will be held at 4:30 PM (that’s Swedish time) at the Royal Chapel, the same place where Princess Madeleine was married in 2013. After the wedding, Prince Carl Philip and the newly-minted Princess Sofia will take a carriage ride through the streets of Stockholm. Dinner will be held in the Vita Havet (or White Sea Ballroom), part of the State Apartments at the Royal Palace, with dancing to follow in Karl XI’s Gallery.

(The royal couple has scheduled their wedding conveniently during my upcoming trip to Ireland, so I’ll probably be happily traipsing about the countryside during the festivities rather than blogging about them here on the day itself. But I will be covering the wedding, and hopefully we’ll have lots of fun in the weeks and days beforehand talking about Swedish royal jewels galore!)