The Netherlands has geared itself for an orgy of royal glamour today with a wedding that was almost derailed by raking over the ashes of Argentina's past. Isabel Conway in Amsterdam explains.
For a long time they were immune to the prying public eye that has so embarrassed their British counterparts. But the arrival in their midst of a gregarious tango-dancing, Argentine-born bank official, about to become a princess and stretching even fairy-tale story book endings to the limits, has revolutionized the once-dull Dutch monarchy.
An insatiable public has devoured the tiniest details of the royal soap romance leading up to today's wedding in Amsterdam between their Crown Prince Willem Alexander (34) and his bride Maxima Zorreguieta (30). Dubbed Maximania, it has been likened to Princess Diana adoration, to the astonishment of some foreign onlookers.
Yet only a year ago a political debate was still raging over the baggage being carried by Miss Zorreguieta. As Argentina's former Minister of Agriculture, for years her father Jorge served under General Videla's notorious military junta linked to the deaths of tens of thousands of political opponents.
The inevitable old videos and photographs which appeared regularly in Dutch gossip magazines of a scantily clad and bleary-eyed "Maxi" in unseemly poses (for a future royal princess) were as nothing compared to this potentially fatal blow to a fairy-tale happy ending.
A knight in shining armour, in the person of Prime Minister Wim Kok, then came to the rescue, cleverly emulating the Netherlands' well-earned reputation of talking every topic to death.
Jorge Zorrequieta's tainted past and its implications for the future Queen of the Netherlands was aired in public so much that opinion surveys soon tilted toward a majority in favour of letting "two deeply in love young people get on with their lives together".
Meanwhile a Dutch government-backed commission to investigate her father's role in the fascist Videla regime concluded that Jorge Zorreguieta, who has always denied knowing anything about the atrocities, must have been aware of what was going on.
Once the nation was assured that Maxima's 73-year-old father would not be welcome at a wedding or other public occasions officially involving the Dutch royal family, all the fuss died down, allowing "the Royal Romance of the Century" to proceed. Neither her mother nor her father will be attending but sisters and brothers and other members of Maxima's family will be inside the 14th-century Nieuwe Kerk. The church has been bedecked with tens of thousands of white flowers in a "sea of baroque beauty and fragrance", as a worker who caught a glimpse of the scene rhapsodised.
Among the 500 guests attending the church nuptials and sumptuous banquet afterwards in the adjacent Dam Palace are members of the royal families of Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Belgium, Spain and Monaco, with representatives of other monarchies around the world.
Prince Charles and Prince Edward of England, UN General Secretary Kofi Annan and former South African president Nelson Mandela will also be there. A silent spy-in-the-sky helicopter will hover far above while a flight ban over 2 kms overhead is in place and over 6,000 police officers will be on duty. Some anti-monarchist demonstrations are expected and a march to highlight the ongoing economic chaos and poverty in Argentina is planned.
Hundreds of thousands of people are expected to line the canal-side streets for a glimpse of the royal couple, who will parade in an elaborate golden coach in a procession of 90 horses and military officers in extravagant ceremonial dress.
Willem Alexander, whose student pet name was Prins Pils, is a typically Dutch, well-built blond man while his bride is also blonde with dark eyes and a high-watt,film-star smile. She will be wearing a spectacular Valentino creation.
Maxima's spontaneity - she confessed that three weeks after first meeting her prince at a ball in Seville which she gate-crashed she had forgotten what he looked like - has endeared her to this reserved nation. Her warmth - she has the Diana touch for making people feel special and she always looks good in front of the cameras - have made her into by far the most popular member of the Dutch royal family.
In a multi-million euro clean-up of the Dutch capital, gaudy neon lights advertising its status as a world centre for sex tourism have been removed from the route. Sex-shop goods and gambling dens are disguised with gilt-framed portraits of the royal couple and giant banners of Willem Alexander and Maxima have been unfurled from buildings and placed in front of shops.
Much of the orange regalia donned by the public today and wedding souvenirs sold by traders anxious to benefit to the full from all the royal fervour has turned out to be dusted-down goods produced in advance for the Netherlands' hoped-for inclusion in the World Cup finals.
"We never expected to be kicked out by Ireland; so the royal wedding is the ideal opportunity for me to shift all the stuff. Willem Alexander and Maxima's names are now stamped on it", explained street trader Jan de Boer yesterday as buyers queued for his royal souvenirs.