The prince who did not want to be king without his queen
In the middle of a skating rink and no witnesses in sight. This was the proposal of Guillermo de Holanda to the Argentine Máxima Zorreguieta, in 2001. The kings of Orange recreated that moment, a year ago, exactly for Valentine’s Day.
“20 years later, same place,” they wrote about the photo showing them on the frozen lake of the Huis ten Bosch royal palace. It was not a 14, but five days later, on February 19, 2001 when Guillermo knelt down and proposed to his current wife. Máxima thought it was just another outing, this time to have hot chocolate with her Dutch boyfriend, and it ended in a “fairy tale” request: with snow, a frozen lake and a kneeling prince included.
“It was a beautiful Friday afternoon and I thought: Máxima will have to learn to skate. Because what is more Dutch than ice skating?” King William told of the choice of venue.
That was a momentous day for Dutch history. According to the constitution of the Netherlands, to marry the crown prince had to have the approval of Parliament. Guillermo’s romance with Máxima was a “state matter” and, according to the palace chroniclers, the future of the relationship was in danger. A priori, an Argentine commoner did not seem like the ideal candidate for the future king.
But Prince William firm. He announced to his mother, Queen Beatrix, that he was not willing to give up this love with the Argentine that he had met in 1999 at the Seville fair. She was the one. He would rather renounce her succession rights, to the throne, than lose her.
20 years later, a documentary revealed that the Dutch government had been investigating the political past of Máxima Zorreguieta’s father. That a report was presented that determined that Jorge Zorreguieta should be declared “persona non grata” and that recommended that the Royal Household keep him away.
As soon as he found out about the result of this report from the Ministry of General Affairs, Guillermo – furious with the way the negotiations were going – precipitated the marriage request. That same day he knelt on the frozen lagoon before a sheltered Máxima and asked her to marry him. The crown prince would leave the Crown if he was denied permission to marry the person he loved.
Aware of the weight of the proposal, in the middle of that frozen lake, Máxima Zorreguieta accepted. Against everything, the commitment was announced on March 30, 2001. But it was not until July 3, 2001 (when the couple announced that the father of the bride agreed to be absent at his daughter’s wedding and the Argentine apologized for the family past), that Parliament authorized the link.
With tears of sadness when the song “Adiós Nonino” sounded, which reminded Máxima de Holanda of her absent father and the joy of her love story with Guillermo, the wedding finally took place on February 2, 2002 in Amsterdam.
The “yes”, from Mary Donaldson to Frederick of Denmark
A movie love story. They met in a bar in Australia during the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games. Crown Prince Frederick of Denmark dined with his brother Joachim and Prince Nicholas of Greece and Martha Louise of Norway. They say that she did not know who she was, that Federico asked her for her phone number and that is how the romance began.
While they strengthened their secret relationship at a distance, between trips, emails and phone calls, Mary Donaldson began to study Danish. In 2002, the commoner left Australia and settled in Paris, where she taught English. In September she quietly moved to Denmark.
The couple went on vacation to Rome in 2003, the setting chosen by the Crown Prince of Denmark to propose to his Australian girlfriend. Far from the flashes, his request for a hand was one of many that lovers make in the Italian capital.
On an official visit to Italy in 2018, Federico himself recounted: “for us it is our moment. Rome is special. It was here that, fifteen years ago, I got the ‘yes’, confessed the future king of Denmark.
In a biography about her husband, the princess and future queen consort recounted what the moment was like. “Prince Frederick wanted to take me to a special place, but when we arrived he suddenly saw that there were many people around us.” Mary from Denmark recalled that they continued walking “until the prince stopped in front of an old and small church: it was there that he asked me to.” Federico achieved the long-awaited “yes”. “Then I only remember that I laughed like a shy girl, and we both felt very happy,” the princess said.
Federico then gave the Australian a ring that represents the Danish flag. Featuring a 1.5 carat emerald cut diamond flanked by two rubies that belonged to her grandmother, Queen Ingrid.
The official announcement of the engagement was in October 2003. Mary Donaldson was 32 years old when they married, on May 14, 2004 in the Cathedral of Our Lady in Copenhagen, and became Princess and future Queen of Denmark.
Harry and Meghan’s documented marriage proposal
The most publicized request for a hand in recent times is, without a doubt, the one made by Prince Harry to Meghan Markle. It was in November 2017. Lady Di’s youngest son was sure that his American girlfriend was the right person. He longed to declare himself to her to cement her relationship with the world. “I wanted to do it before, but I had to ask my grandmother for permission. I couldn’t do it outside the UK, ”Harry recounted in his autobiography“ In the Shadow ”. And then he told how that brief -and uncomfortable- conversation was.
-You know that I love Meg very much and I have decided that I would like to propose to her, and they have told me that I have to ask your authorization before asking for her hand, he told Elizabeth II.
“Do you have to?” she replied. Seeing him decided, the Queen relented: “I guess I’ll have to say yes,” she told him.
In his own words, that dialogue left Harry “baffled.”
In the Netflix miniseries “Harry and Meghan”, Prince Harry recounted that the proposal finally took place in the garden of his house, one cold night.
“I opened a bottle of champagne while she (Meghan) was roasting a chicken. That gave me away. ‘You don’t drink champagne, what are we celebrating?’, she asked me. ‘I don’t know, I just had it around here,’ I replied. Not that I knew she was going to agree, but she had Guy – Meghan’s dog – living with me, she was holding him hostage. We were in the Garden Ward which overlooks the staff apartments. I placed 15 led candles and knelt down, of course I did it, ”said the prince who resigned from the Royal Family, according to his words,“ for love ”.
Prince Harry detailed in his autobiography: “I placed led candles around a blanket that I had spread out on the lawn. I asked Meg to take her champagne glass and come out with me. She wanted it to look like Botswana, the savannah, where it first occurred to me to propose to her. At that moment I knelt on the blanket, with Guy next to me. I already had tears in my eyes, I took the ring out of my pocket and said my part:
-Do you spend your life with me?’
-Yeah.
-Yeah?
I laughed, she laughed. We began to caress Guy who looked at us astonished. It was a November 4th. We managed to keep it under wraps for about two weeks,” Harry wrote.
“We were so happy and excited. We’re going to do this,” Meghan said in the miniseries that shows scenes of the proposal recorded on video.
The official engagement of Prince Harry, 33, was announced on November 27, 2017. Meghan received a ring designed by him that includes two diamonds from his mother Princess Diana’s collection and a large radiant-cut diamond from Botswana, your special place in the world.
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