Mary and Letizia: first kiss

Crown Prince Frederik can hardly be blamed for taking it slowly.  After all, an heir to the throne has a certain image to stick to and the words traditional and respectable are firmly attached to it.  So when, ten years ago this week, he presented his fiancée to the crowds gathered at the Amalienborg Palace in Copenhagen he kept the kisses to a gentle and gentlemanly peck on the hand for his future princess.

 

A casual kiss on the hand for a princess in waiting.  Mary gets to grips with the art of the royal wave while the Crown Prince tries to play it cool

 

Felipe and Letizia couldn't stop holding hands, waists or arms - anything that kept within respectable limits - when they met the press for the first time as an engaged couple.  It was much the same a few days later at the official engagement event.  But they stopped short of a kiss.

 

 

Felipe and Letizia up close and personal but refraining from kissing at their engagement event

 

By the time we got to the weddings in May 2004, things were very different.  Once man and wife, Frederik and Mary showered kisses on one another. Outside the church, on the balcony, at the reception, in the official photographs.  There can't be a royal couple ever, anywhere, who have puckered up so much after their marriage ceremony. 

 

 

One of a million kisses - the bride and groom couldn't resist locking lips on their wedding day

 

Meanwhile, Felipe and Letizia were caught in an armlock for most of their wedding day and their decision not to share a kiss on the balcony still seems strange all these years on.  But we got a discreet peck on the cheek.  And a little kiss on the forehead from the groom to the bride at the reception.  Maybe it's the balconies, they make royal couples come over all coy.

 

 

A chaste kiss for the Prince and Princess of Asturias on their wedding day in May 2004