A decade of Mary and Letizia

This month marks ten years since those heady few weeks back in 2003 when Europe went royal wedding crazy.  After the excitement of Haakon and Mette-Marit's do in Oslo in August 2001 and the splendor of Willem-Alexander's wedding to Maxima just six months later in February 2002, Europe's heirs had gone a bit quiet on the marriage front.  And then suddenly there were diamonds, rubies and photocalls as far as they eye could see.

 

They even saved the date of the engagement - Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark and Mary Donaldson on October 8th 2003 following the official announcement they were to marry

In just a few days' time, Mary and Frederik will find themselves exactly ten years on from the official announcement of their engagement.  The news was widely expected after a courtship of around three years.  Even the date of the official proclamation was known in advance as at the end of September 2003, Queen Margrethe II let it be known that on October 8th 2003 she would give the royal approval needed for her heir to marry his Mary.

 

 

A queen consort in waiting begins her journey towards the throne. Mary Donaldson during her first interview after it was confirmed she would marry the future king of Denmark

 

And just as all the excitement of the first royal wedding in Europe for over a year was being absorbed, we got two of a king as Prince Felipe stunned everyone by announcing his engagement to Letizia Ortiz Rocosolano without anyone really realizing they had been seeing one another.

Prince Felipe of Spain, future king, presents his future queen to the media a few days after the surprise announcement of their engagement on November 1st 2003

 

For several years afterwards, the couples' lives seemed to jog along in tandem with weddings and babies happening literally within days of one another.  But the decade has treated both pairs quite differently and over the next few weeks I'm going to be marking that mad marriage month of 2003 by looking back at the beginnings of two of Europe's most famous royal romances and charting how they, and the people involved in them, have fared on the road to becoming modern monarchs.  There will be plenty of polls about it too, changing through the month.  Ten years on, how has life treated these two very different queens in waiting?