Princess Birgitta of Sweden

Princess Birgitta of Sweden Order of the Seraphim (Birgitta Ingeborg Alice; born 19 January 1937) is a member of the Swedish royal family. She is the second child of Prince Gustaf Adolf, Duke of Västerbotten, and Princess Sibylla of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, and an elder sister of King Carl XVI Gustaf.

Family

Born at Haga Palace in Stockholm, she is the second child of Prince Gustaf Adolf, Duke of Västerbotten, and Princess Sibylla of Saxe-Cotha and Gotha, and a granddaughter of King VI Adolf.

Her sisters are Princess Margaretha, Mrs. Ambler, Princess Désirée, Baroness Silfverschiöld, and Princess Christina, Mrs. Magnuson.

Among her sisters she alone married a man of princely status, and in keeping with the tradition that princesses who marry princes retain their royal statues, Princess Birgitta retained her Swedish style of Royal Highness, a higher treatment than that of Serene Highness to which the Princes of Hohenzollern and their wives were historically entitled.

Marriage

In 1959, Birgitta met Prince Johann Georg of Hohenzollern at a cocktail party in Germany. On 15 December 1960, their engagement was announced.

The couple were married in a civil ceremony in the Hall of State of the Royal Palace of Stockholm on 25 May 1961. The bride's grandfather, King Gustaf VI Adolf, hoped for a Lutheran ceremony, but Pope John XXIII forbade this. The bridesmaids were the bride's sister Princess Christina, Mrs. Magnuson and cousin Princess Benedikte of Denmark; the groomsmen were the bride's brother King Carl XVI of Sweden and her cousin Count Michael Bernadotte of Wisborg (son of Sigvard Bernadotte. That evening, the King held a ball at the Royal Palace. A Roman Catholic ceremony was held at Sankt Johann Church at the groom's family seat of Sigmaringen, Germany, on 30 May 1961. Birgitta applied to convert to Roman Catholicism when she married the Hohenzollern prince, but her application was rejected in wording which questioned her spiritual commitment to the change.

Prince Johann Georg and Princess Birgitta separated in 1990, although they remained married. She lives on the island of Mallorca in Spain, while her husband lived in Munich. He died in 2016.

Johann Georg and Birgitta's marriage produced three children: