Sweden's popular Crown Princess Victoria, who is set to marry her former gym trainer on Saturday, is known for her easy-going style, warmth and poise, but also for her competitive drive and strength of character.

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Her husband-to-be, 36-year-old Daniel Westling, has over the past eight years emerged from obscurity to become an elegant, well-liked and natural member of the royal entourage.

They both profess a great love of nature, preferring strolling through the woods in Westling's small hometown of Ockelbo to fancy outings.

Their down-to-earth image has helped win them admirers in a country where flashiness is frowned upon.

Daughter of King Carl XVI Gustaf, 64, and Queen Silvia, 66, and big sister to Prince Carl Philip, 31, and Princess Madeleine, 28, Victoria has regularly topped the list of Swedes' favourite royal.

Her engagement to Westling, a commoner and small-town boy who met the princess when in 2001 he became her personal trainer at a luxury gym he owned, has only strengthened Swedes affection for her.

This fairytale stars a princess who dared stand up for love, and stuck to her choice despite reported opposition from her father, who feared the gap between their upbringing was too wide to bridge.

"Victoria is a very, very strong woman," said Johan T. Lindwall, who in May 2002 broke the news of their relationship in the tabloid Expressen: their first kiss caught on camera sent shockwaves through Sweden.

"I thought it was not for real," he told AFP.

"She is the crown princess of Sweden ... and he is a common guy from the countryside who was also her personal trainer, so in my eyes, it was not a possible equation," he told AFP.

But Victoria, who will one day become Sweden's third regent queen, stuck to her choice.

The bride-to-be's frank expression of her feelings has endeared her to many.

At 32, Victoria has spent most of her adult years preparing for her future role as regent with a specially tailored education.

This has included two years of studies at Yale University in the United States, stints at the United Nations, the European Union, and internships with the Swedish government and military.

Daniel's early adulthood was quite different: after completing his military service and working at a school for children with special needs, he moved to Stockholm.

There, he studied youth recreation in an adult education programme, worked part time in a fitness centre and eventually became part-owner of several luxury gyms.

"Love has won," Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt said following the couple's engagement in February 2009.

"It is wonderful that the king has decided that Crown Princess Victoria and Daniel will finally have each other."

The couple's June 19 wedding, to be held 36 years to the day after the king and queen were married, has indeed been a long time in coming.

Since 2002, they have often been seen walking hand-in-hand and laughing together at sporting events, concerts, or hiking in the woods.

But it was not until 2006 that he first began appearing at Victoria's side at official royal functions.

While the princess has over the years proven herself to be capable of acting as regent, the pressure on her is immense and the expectations were sometimes too much to bear.

In 1997, the palace confirmed that the visibly thinned-down princess was suffering from anorexia.

She recovered soon after, and has since talked candidly in the media about the pressures facing young women in general.

Daniel's teenage years meanwhile were spent in a middle-class home in what he has called a "completely gender-equal family," making average grades but excelling in sports and dreaming of becoming a hockey pro.

At the age of 16, he learned he had a congenital disease causing impaired renal function.

His condition was not known to the public until the palace announced he had undergone a transplant and received a new kidney from his father, three months after their engagement.

"He is not one to give up," said the journalist Lindwall.

"From the beginning until today, he never thought it would not be possible ... to make Victoria his wife."

Victoria Ingrid Alice Desiree was born on July 14, 1977.

Her crown princess title was assured when Sweden changed its succession law after the birth of her younger brother in May 1979 to enable the monarch's first-born child to inherit the throne regardless of gender.

The law went into effect on January 1, 1980.

Her future husband, Daniel Olof Westling, was born in the central Swedish town of Oerebro on September 15, 1973 -- the same day Victoria's father Carl XVI Gustaf was crowned king.