Happy New Year, Royal Romance Readers!  Let’s take a look back at some of the royal milestones we witnessed in 2009…

(PS: Want more end-of-the-year events?  Check out the British royal decade in review at The Royal Roundup!)

Royal Weddings

The Duke of Vendôme and Philomena de Tornos y Steinhart

The Orléanist pretender to the French throne, Henri, Count of Paris, announced the engagement of his son and heir, Prince Jean, Duke of Vendôme, to Philomena de Tornos y Steinhart on November 29, 2008.  The couple was married first in Paris in a civil ceremony on March 19, 2009, and then religiously at the Cathédrale Notre-Dame in Senlis on May 2, 2009.

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Aftonbladet reports this week that Crown Princess Victoria has chosen a designer to make the gown for her June 2010 wedding to Daniel Westling: Pär Engsheden.

Victoria was reportedly keen to use her wedding dress as an opportunity to highlight the Swedish fashion industry, so it’s no surprise that she has chosen a Swedish designer to make the gown.  Victoria’s mother, Queen Silvia, wore a couture gown by Christian Dior to her own royal wedding in 1976, so having a local designer create the dress will be something of a break with tradition.

Engsheden has been designing for the Swedish royal ladies for years, making Victoria’s Nobel gowns for the past several years as well as the purple dress she wore to announce her engagement this February.  The paper also notes that one of Engsheden’s most famous royal creations so far has been Princess Madeleine’s gown for the 2002 Nobel banquet; its resemblance to a certain red swimsuit apparently earned it the nickname “the Baywatch dress” from the Swedish fashion press.  I’ll go ahead and guess now that Victoria’s wedding dress will be a bit more modest than that.

Read more from Aftonbladet (in Swedish).

The Greek royal family announced on Monday that the second son of King Constantine and Queen Anne-Marie, Prince Nikolaos of Greece and Denmark, is engaged to his longtime girlfriend, Tatiana Blatnik.  Congratulations to the couple!

Nikolaos, 40, was born in Italy after Constantine was deposed by a coup in the late 1960s.  He was raised in London, and has a degree from Brown University in the US.  He currently works for his father in England and, it has been reported, for a Dubai airline as well.  Tatiana, reportedly born in 1980, has worked for fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg.  She was raised in Switzerland and reportedly attended Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.

The couple has been dating for six years.  Early reports from magazines like Svensk Damtidning and Billed-Bladet suggest that the two will marry in 2011, probably in London.  Nikolaos’s older brother, Crown Prince Pavlos, married his American wife, Marie-Chantal, in London, and the city is where the Greek royals are based.

After the wedding, Tatiana will be styled HRH Princess Nikolaos of Greece and Denmark.

Danish magazine Billed-Bladet has released a photo of Crown Prince Frederik and Crown Princess Mary’s annual Christmas card on the cover of a recent issue.

Along with the Crown Prince and Crown Princess, the card also features their two children: Prince Christian, who turned four in October, and Princess Isabella, who is two.  The family’s dog, Ziggy, can be seen in the foreground of the photo.

It’s quite a lovely image, isn’t it?  I love these casual-yet-posed royal family photos.

To all the readers who celebrate,

Merry Christmas!

Enjoy the message from my dear friend Linus above, and then hop on over to Mad Hattery, where we’ll all be weighing in on the hats worn by the royal ladies of the House of Windsor to church on Christmas morning.

Hope you all have a wonderful and happy holiday!