Between the bar and the stadium: where can you meet a modern prince?

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What girl did not dream in her childhood of a handsome prince who would put her on a white horse and take her to his beautiful castle? In our time, when dynastic marriages have long gone down in history, some are lucky and this dream comes true. True, there are not so many functioning monarchies left in the world, so the princes can be counted on the fingers. But there is good news: most of them, as practice shows, choose their brides in other states, often very distant ones. Hence the conclusion: you need to learn foreign languages ​​and visit places where there are members of royal families. In honor of Valentine’s Day, we tell you where modern European princes and kings met their princesses.

Sports events

Members of the royal families regularly attend major sports tournaments in which their national teams participate. The most important in a series of such events are the Olympic Games. They account for most of the acquaintances of princes with their future wives. Take, for example, King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden, who met his love at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich. Half-German and half-Brazilian Sylvia Sommerlath had by this time graduated from the Munich Institute of Translators and got a job on the city’s promotion committee.

At the Olympic Games, she served as an interpreter and hostess in the sector for VIP guests, and made a lasting impression on the heir to the Swedish throne. But he was very shy and could not bring himself to approach her. During one of the evening receptions as part of the games, Carl Gustav asked the organizers to have the hostess he saw at the opening bring him a glass of wine. And although this was not part of the duties of Sylvia, she did not refuse. Then the crown prince invited her on a date. And four years later — in June 1976 — they got married.

But it is absolutely not necessary to break into the VIP sector of the stadium in order to make acquaintance with the crowned lady. For example, Mary Donaldson from Australia met her prince in a pub next to her office. In September 2000, the Olympic Games were held in Sydney, and all the drinking establishments were packed with foreigners who had come to support their athletes. Mary, who worked as an advertising manager, stopped on her way home from the office to the trendy Slip Inn pub, where Crown Prince Frederik was having a drink with other members of the Danish delegation. The son of the Queen of Denmark introduced himself simply as “Fred” and invited the girl on a date. In May 2003, they married in Copenhagen Cathedral.

At the competitions, the first meeting of the South African swimming champion Charlene Wittstock with Prince Albert of Monaco took place. It was in 2000 during the Monegasque leg of the Mare Nostrum swimming series. But a serious relationship between them began much later. In 2006, they met at the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics in Turin, and soon Charlene moved from her native South Africa to Monaco. In July 2011, their wedding took place in the courtyard of the princely palace.

But the younger brother of the King of Great Britain Charles III Prince Edward and his wife Sophie Rhys-Jones met at a tennis tournament. Before that, he met with her friend, and they crossed paths with him several times. But the real acquaintance, which turned into a long-term romance and marriage, happened when she, being the head of PR-company, was engaged in advertising a sporting event, the patron of which was the youngest son of Elizabeth II. In June 1999 they married at St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle. It was an unusual royal wedding — the newlyweds wanted a modest and family atmosphere. The groom in a tailcoat, and not in a uniform, came on foot. Of the 560 guests, most were friends and relatives of the couple, not foreign kings and queens. Well, those representatives of the monarchies of the world, who nevertheless arrived in England for the sake of this event, had, like, for example, the Sultan of Brunei and his wives, to travel by minibuses.

You can meet the prince just by doing sports. For example, half-Belgian and half-Polish Mathilde Ghislaine d’Udekem d’Akoz met Crown Prince Philippe, Duke of Brabant on a tennis court. The girl worked at a school for children with speech disorders, led a very modest lifestyle. She managed to keep her romance with the future king of the country a secret from journalists for three whole years. In December 1999, they got married.

Savor

Of course, heirs to thrones do not live by sport alone. The youngest son of the Danish Queen Margrethe, Prince Joachim, met both wives at dinner parties. With British from Hong Kong Alexandra Manley — in 1994, and with the Frenchwoman Marie Cavalier — in 2002. This second dinner caused the first divorce in Danish history for the son of a reigning monarch.

Later, the prince confessed to reporters:

Our meeting was pure coincidence. At that time I was married. But, since we were the only French-speaking people at dinner, the hosts seated us next to each other. It turned out that Marie had never been to Denmark, we talked with pleasure. But our romance began much later.

They got married in May 2008.

And the British King Charles met both of his wives during social events. Moreover, as you know, he met his second wife Camilla Shand earlier than his first. — Diana Spencer. Lady Di first saw the heir to the throne when she was 16 years old. She had come for the holidays to her father’s estate, Althorp. There, at the invitation of her sister Sarah, 29-year-old Karl, with whom she had an affair, came to hunt pheasants. He paid attention to Diana only two years later. — at a reception at the royal estate of Balmoral in Scotland.

They got married in June 1981. As for Carl’s acquaintance with Camilla, it happened in June 1971. According to one version, it happened at a party, according to another — at a polo match. They were introduced to each other by a mutual friend. — ex-boyfriend of Prince Lucy Santa Cruz. As you know, Camilla immediately informed the prince that her great-great-grandmother Alice Keppel was a long-term lover of Charles’ great-great-great-grandfather King Edward VII. With this, she predetermined their relationship for many years. — before the wedding, which took place in April 2005.

Argentine Maxima Zorregueta met her prince in the spring of 1999 during the carnival in Seville, Spain. At one of the noisy parties, a handsome blond man who introduced himself as Willem-Alexander approached her. At first, Maxima did not suspect that she was communicating with the heir to the royal throne of the Netherlands. Later — at a wedding banquet on February 2, 2002 – she admitted that she laughed for a long time when he told her that he was a prince by profession and a future king. Willem-Alexander and his Queen Maxima recently celebrated their 20th wedding anniversary.

And King Harald of Norway V found his happiness at a party with friends. In June 1959, 22-year-old Sonya Haraldsen, who had recently lost her father, did not want to go out to have fun, but her friends persuaded her to unwind a little. A month later, she was photographed with the heir to the Norwegian throne at his graduation ball. She was a certified fashion designer, but worked in her father’s small clothing store. In those days, she did not have a chance to marry the future king. Harald’s father King Olaf V forbade him even to think about the commoner Sonya.

For nine years they met in secret from the prince’s parents, after which Harald posed the question point-blank: either he marries his beloved girl, or does not marry at all, and Norway will be left without heirs to the throne. In August 1968 they got married. Apparently, therefore, Harald did not object when his son Haakon announced that he was marrying the commoner Mette-Marit Tjessem Heiby. With a single mother with no higher education and a very dubious past, he met at a party during the largest music festival in Norway in her hometown of Kristiansand. In August 2001, Prince Haakon, instead of waiting for the bride at the altar, left the Oslo Cathedral, took her hand at the door and walked with her along the aisle of the temple.

Matchmaking

Also, Karl’s brother Prince Andrew met his only wife at a party. True, formally, she and Sarah Ferguson had known each other since childhood, but the real acquaintance took place in 1985 at a summer social event at Windsor Castle dedicated to the races at Ascot. And the employee of the art gallery got to the royal party for a reason: Princess Diana put her on the guest list precisely so that Sarah and Andrew would renew their acquaintance. A week after that, the couple began a stormy romance, and in July 1986 they got married in Westminster Abbey.

Compassionate girlfriends — this is a whole separate direction in the life of the British royal family. After all, Prince Harry and actress Meghan Markle were introduced by the aristocrat Violet von Westenholtz, who was friends with him since childhood. It was she who came up with the idea to arrange a blind date for them when, in early July 2016, the star of the series Suits came to London on a working visit. After that, events developed rapidly, and already in May 2018 they went to the altar in the chapel of St. George in Windsor.

Study and work

Everyone knows, but we recall that public favorites Prince William and Kate Middleton met at the prestigious St. Andrews University in Scotland. According to rumors, on the first date, Kate decided to play a trick on the prince and made a curtsy, but lost her balance and fell. When she fell, she hit William, who was holding a glass of drink in his hands, and the contents of the glass spilled onto his clothes. However, this did not make the prince disappointed in a graduate in art history. In April 2011, after a long romance, separation and reunion, Kate married her prince.

Spanish journalist CNN Letizia Ortiz Rocasolano met the future king in Galicia in the north of the country under extremely unromantic circumstances. In 2002, Letizia filmed a report there about the oil tanker Prestige that sank off the coast of Spain. And Philip, then still the Prince of Asturias, came as part of a government delegation to understand the causes and consequences of the environmental disaster. They hid their relationship to the last, so when the royal family announced the engagement of the heir to the throne and a popular journalist, it came as a shock to many. And in May 2004 they got married in Madrid.