Latest on the christening...

Low-key christening rehearsal at Fredensborg - Lillepigen and Christian exit stage left

We already know this christening is more low-key than Christian's (less than half the size), but there is confirmation today that none of Mary's siblings will be there on Sunday. Jane Stephens and Patricia Bailey will be at home in Hobart and Mary's brother John is at work in his job as a geologist in Western Australia. Mary's father and step-mother will attend

Royal guests will include Crown Princess Victoria, Crown Prince Haakon and Crown Princess Mette-Marit. We also know there will be many of the closer family royals among Princess Benedikte's and Queen Anne-Marie's children. And, it is not pushing it too hard to speculate there will be a strong contingent of Frederik's and Mary's friends

It is thought about 140 guests are invited, but there are not many details until the christening. We will post the guest list, information about the service, church decorations and Bishop Erik Norman Svendsen's sermon when we can. They will appear on the court websites during the christening (links to both on the left navigation bar here)

The weather forecast for North Sjælland on Sunday is fine but cloudy and a daytime temperature of 22C, winds look as if they'll be north westerly

DR reports that the 35,000 or so people expected to be travelling on buses in the metro area on their way to their summer house needn't miss out on the news of Lille prinsessens name. The drivers on duty are equiped with radios which will be used to transmit the news to the passengers the moment it is made public at the christening!

The Municipalty of Århus will give Lilleprinsessen a playhouse sized copy of Marselisborg Castle in a ratio of 1:10 (3.8 metres x 1.7 metres and 1.85 metres high).

The playhouse (above) will be made of environmentally sound materials. The entrance will be between the two towers and the roof can be opened too, so that grown-ups can get in more easily. The playhouse is designed by Alice Rosborg, the city architect for the Århus Municipality

The Marselisborg Palace playhouse to be - a gift from Århus Municipality

The Sønderborg Municipality will give Lille prinsessen a gift she can use when she is visiting Gråsten Palace each summer. It is two little chairs, Peter model designed in 1944, and a little table made by the furniture designer Wegener. They hope the set will be placed at Gråsten Palace. The set is also a kind of construction toy because each chair has four parts which can be put together without tools.

From the Danish Pottery Museum comes a miniature cup and porridge bowl made by potter Lisbeth Kring Jensen (article in Danish Melfar Posten)

And another gift story from Ballarat via Sydney. The North Shore Times reported on a purchase for Lilleprinsessen 'Plush plaything posted to princess at palace'. The rams are pretty in pink!

Here's something fun - this is a link to panoramas of Fredensborg Palace and inside the Palace Chapel where the christening will take place. You need QuickTime to use the zooming panorama feature (zoom in with SHIFT and out with CTRL or hold down left mouse button and move right hand over a laptop mouse pad). The NR-photos are by Hans Nyberg.

This DR Prinsesse theme page has links to Margrethe's, Frederik's, Felix's and Christian's christenings (scroll down the page a little). Danes can get the name of Lilleprinsesse just after it is announced SMSd to them from a link on this page. So many bases are being covered it is hard to imagine a Dane who will not know the name within seconds of it being uttered!

DR.dk video clip (1:48) Guess what? there is a strong princess theme in Fredensborg
DR.dk video clip (0:30) Fredensborg in princess mode for the 18:30 news credits
TV2 video clip (2:20) Every little girl in Denmark seems to be a princess
DR.dk video clip (1:54) about the making of the Tasmanian gift to Lilleprinsesse

From The Sydney Morning Herald Danes guessing on name of Mary's baby

From news.com.au Punting on name for daughter of Princess Mary

Sydney's Daily Telegraph has a 22 photo 'Fred & Mary' gallery

And here is a royal baby collection of photos (TV2 is running a competition of opinions on who is the fairest of them all!) - TV2 historical royal babies gallery it begins with Christian X (for whom the christening robes were made in Belgium) as a baby with his mother Alexandrine, Frederik IX in the most unfortunate, erm, sailor's dress with his father Christian X standing directly behind his chair, poor Frederik IX again 'decorated' with a large frilly hat (he must have had a few laughs over those photos as an adult!), then Margrethe with Christian X, Frederik and Joachim, Nikolai and Felix, Christian and Lilleprinsesse.

Added:

The Sunday Tasmanian/The Mercury 'Danish royals keep mum'

Danish reports are that the press accreditation has been a bit of a bun fight. Had Frederik and Mary accepted all applications for accreditiation, the press alone wouldn't fit into the chapel, let alone the guests. B.T.'s Bodil Cath says the emphasis has been on it being small. On an Australian TV news this evening she indicated that maybe all Australian women are named Sheila or Kylie! Jyllands Posten reports on the press numbers too. Only a small number of the press who applied for accreditation got it, including just one photo-journalist from Australia

According to Jyllands Posten the Australian Embassy in Copenhagen will give Lilleprinsessen a selection of original Australian children's books as a christening gift on behalf of the Australian government. Great precedent! Christian got an original edition of the 1918 May Gibbs classic Snugglepot and Cuddlepie

Lillepigen will receive Hazel Edwards" There's a Hippopotamus on Our Roof Eating Cake and Jackie French's wonderful Diary of a Wombat based on a real wombat in her garden, among other books.

Webcasts

A note for our readers: both networks in Denmark (DR1 and TV2) have extensive (hours!) of coverage planned. In addition NRK in Norway will have a live broadcast which they usually webcast and leave on their site to watch again afterwards (how nice!). We anticipate that we will post webcast links from all three of these sources, so bone up on your Danish and Norwegian! Just come here if you are unsure where to find links and you will find them here.

The coverage will begin very early in Denmark with morning shows on both networks, from 7:00am on DR1 and from 8:30am on TV2 (after B1 and B2 come down the stairs to catch you unawares! - the Australian toddler's favourite Bananas in Pyjamas, and 2 - does Christian watch?)

Here is a link to the World Clock time converter so you can calculate times for where you live. The broadcasts will be roughly for 5 and 6 hours with the arrival of guests from 10:30am and the christening itself until around 1:00pm. For east coast Australians and then the other time zones, it will be late afternoon and early evening. Seven and Nine Networks are promoting coverage of some sort (with reporters there) but neither are live. As with Christian's christening, SkyNews may show it live if you have cable. For those around the globe who will be fast asleep, there will be plenty of video clips to see later from Danish and Australian television and plenty from the print media too. It will be hard to miss it!