Monaco's playboy prince sets wedding date

The countdown began yesterday to the society event of the decade when Monaco's playboy Prince Albert II set a date next year for his long-awaited marriage to a South African swimming champ.

Prince Albert, the 52-year-old son of the late Prince Rainier III and the Hollywood actress Grace Kelly, has no legitimate heir and he has kept royal-watchers guessing about his love life for decades.

Now, the Mediterranean statelet's royal household has announced that he will wed a South African former Olympic swimmer 20 years his junior, Charlene Wittstock, next summer at a keenly awaited Riviera royal wedding.

The couple will tie the knot in a civil ceremony at the palace on July 8 and then hold a religious service the following day, a statement said. The venue of the church ceremony will be announced at a later date.

Prince Albert has ruled Monaco, a city state on the south coast of France and a millionaires' playground, since succeeding his late father in July 2005.

Ms Wittstock is a former swimming champion and schoolteacher who met the prince in 2000 after she won gold in the 200-metre backstroke at a Monaco swimming meeting he was hosting.

It is not clear exactly when the pair became an item, but they appeared together socially at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, at the Monaco Grand Prix and at this year's Swedish royal marriage on June 19.

Their formal engagement was announced four days later.

"This is a marriage of considerable importance," said Stephane Bern, the organiser of Monaco's annual high-society ball and expert on princely affairs.

"You can expect at least 2,000 journalists. Monaco inspires fascination in people's minds, it's a permanent dream factory," he added, suggesting the frenzy could equal that surrounding the wedding of Prince Albert's father.

Prince Rainier's marriage to Grace Kelly in 1956, in which her Hollywood star power met his European aristocratic pomp, was one of the society events of the century and royal-watchers are keenly awaiting Prince Albert's nuptials.