Expected price tag: $16 million
Price tag: more than $3 million
In the biggest royal wedding since Lady Di married Prince Charles, Sweden's crown princess wed her former trainer at a cost of more than $3 million. An audience of close to 1,200 (including six kings and nine queens) packed into the Stockholm Cathedral, while an additional 250,000 watched the ceremony and accompanying procession from the streets, which the government had decorated with flower arrangements. Several parties disapproved; the bride’s father wasn’t hot on the idea of her marrying a commoner, the public’s disdain for the modern monarchy increased with news of the affair’s grand cost, and royalists were upset that the bride’s father escorted her down the aisle rather than the groom, as Swedish custom dictates.