Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark and Crown Princess Mary of Denmark appear on the balcony as the Royal Life Guards carry out the changing of the guard on Amalienborg Palace square on May 26, 2018 in Copenhagen, Denmark.Photo:Patrick van Katwijk/Getty
Patrick van Katwijk/Getty
King Frederik andQueen Marymay be the newKing and Queen of Denmark, but their royal love story has much more humble beginnings.
Their relationship began in the most unlikely of places:a pub in Sydney, Australia’s Darling Harbor, thousands of miles from Denmark. Then-Prince Frederik was in town for the 2000 Olympics and first set eyes on the Australian-born Mary Donaldson at Sydney’s Slip Inn. The royal, who introduced himself simply as “Fred," struck up a conversation with Mary, a 28-year-old advertising executive from Tasmania, and the rest was history.
“Something clicked,” Mary said about the night they met in a 2005 interview. “It wasn’t the fireworks in the sky or anything like that, but there was a sense of excitement.”
“I don’t recall wishing that one day I would be a princess,” Mary once said. “I wanted to be a veterinarian.”
After being known as Crown Princess Mary for nearly 20 years, she is now the queen consort of Denmark. Queen Margrethe announced in her New Year’s address on Dec. 31, 2023, that she would beabdicating the thronein January, making Frederik and his wife the new King and Queen of the Scandinavian nation. And though Queen Margrethe, 83, cited health concerns as her reasoning for stepping down from the throne, royal commentators mused that it wasan effort to bolster Frederik and Mary’s bondafter rumors of an affair surfaced in November 2023.
From their unlikely meeting to their royal romance, here is everything to know about King Frederik and Queen Mary’s love story.
They met at a pub in Sydney in 2000
Crown Prince Frederik and Mary Elizabeth Donaldson in August 2002.KELD NAVNTOFT/SCANPIX/AFP/Getty
KELD NAVNTOFT/SCANPIX/AFP/Getty
Frederik and Mary’s royal love story began far away from the palaces of Denmark — in a local bar in Sydney.
The two hit it off, but when Mary first met Frederik — who introduced himself only as “Fred” — she had no idea he was a royal.
“The first time that we met or shook hands, I did not know he was the crown prince of Denmark,” Mary revealedin a 2003 interview with60 Minutes Australia. “It was perhaps half an hour or so later that someone came up to me and said, ‘Do you know who these people are?’ ”
Frederik asked for Mary’s phone number that evening, and a romance began between the two.
“From the very first moment that we started talking, we never really stopped talking,” Mary told60 Minutes Australia. “It really established a strong relationship to begin with.”
They had a long-distance relationship for nearly two years
The King and Queen spent the first two years of their romance in a long-distance relationship, with the Danish royal making secret trips to Australia to visit Mary. The pair also managed to keep their relationship out of the public eye for more than a year until a Danish tabloid revealed in November 2001 that they were an item.
“It was one of those relationships where we slowly got closer and closer to each other besides the geographical distance,” Frederik said in an interview with60 Minutes Australiain 2003.
Their long-distance relationship continued until early 2002 when Mary relocated from Sydney to Copenhagen. In addition to moving halfway around the world, she also converted to the Lutheran Church and began studying Danish (a notoriously tough language to learn).
They announced their engagement in October 2003
Crown Prince Frederik shows the engagement ring on the hand of Mary Donaldson on October 8, 2003.KELD NAVNTOFT/AFP/Getty
KELD NAVNTOFT/AFP/Getty
They were married on May 14, 2004
Prince Frederik and Princess Mary Elizabeth Donaldson walk out of the Copenhagen Cathedral on May 14, 2004.SVEN NACKSTRAND/AFP/Getty
SVEN NACKSTRAND/AFP/Getty
Mary’s personal history was also reflected in her wedding day ensemble: She carried a bouquet adorned with eucalyptus, a tribute to her native Australia, and her late mother’s engagement ring was sewn into her wedding dress, perVogue Australia.(Her mother died in 1997 due to complications from heart surgery.)
“I love her, and I will protect her with all my heart,” Frederik vowed in his wedding speech.
They have four children together
Danish Crown Prince and his family during their visit to the village of Mikladalur on August 24, 2018.Ole Jensen/Corbis/Getty
Ole Jensen/Corbis/Getty
The royal couple share four children:Prince Christian,Princess Isabella,Prince Vincentand Princess Josephine.
They welcomed their eldest child,Prince Christian, on Oct. 15, 2005. As the couple’s firstborn child, he is currently first in line to the Danish throne.
Princess Isabella was born on April 21, 2007. She is now second in line to the Danish throne, behind her older brother.
Frederik and Mary then welcomedtwins, Prince Vincent and Princess Josephine, on Jan. 8, 2011. They are currently third and fourth in line to the throne, respectively, as Vincent was born just minutes earlier than his twin sister.
While having four children certainly keeps King Frederik and Queen Mary busy, they still manage to find time for each other as a couple — even if that time is family time.
“Time becomes more precious when you have children,” Mary toldBerlingske Tiendein 2008. “It’s not like you lose each other because you are with the children. It’s just a different way to be together and that’s some of the best part of it all.”
Queen Mary revealed a tarot card reader predicted her royal future
Crown Princess Mary of Denmark seen at arrival to the Danish Parliament on October 1, 2019.Ole Jensen/Getty
Ole Jensen/Getty
Frederik and Mary’s meeting in a Sydney bar may have been random, but Mary later revealed thata tarot card reader predicted her royal futurebefore she ever set eyes on the King.
Mary was visiting a flea market in Sydney when she saw the soothsayer and decided to give it a try. After pulling her cards, the fortune teller told Mary that she would meet a man from abroad, become famous and move to Europe.
“So I left there and thought, ‘Well yes, that was a lot of fun, but nothing more,’ ” Mary told Jens Andersen (the author ofUnder the Bar, an authorized biography of King Frederik), according to Danish newspaperKristeligt Dagblad.
Mary continued, “But I’ve always been interested in the spiritual. In mystery and fate.”
They’ve returned to the Olympics several times
Crown Prince Frederik and Crown Princess Mary during a preliminary basketball match at the Olympic Basketball Gymnasium in Beijing, China on August 10th, 2008.Alain BENAINOUS/Gamma-Rapho/Getty
Alain BENAINOUS/Gamma-Rapho/Getty
The Olympic games brought Frederik and Mary together, and they’ve returned to the event several times since their initial meeting in 2000.
King Frederik was also inducted into the International Olympic Committee in 2009 and had Olympic hopes of his own when he considered trying out for Denmark’s Olympic sailing team in 1996.
“If I dropped out of everything else I was doing, yes, if I had spent four years training for it, then I could have done it,” he said about his Olympic ambitions. “Instead I plunged into a different life, so no, I don’t regret that.”
They were proclaimed King and Queen of Denmark on Jan. 14, 2024
IDA MARIE ODGAARD/Ritzau Scanpix/AFP via Getty Images
Queen Margrethe — the longest reigning monarch in Denmark’s history — announced at the end of 2023 that she would be stepping down from the throne after serving over five decades as Queen. As a result, Frederik and Mary were proclaimed King and Queen of Denmark on Jan. 14, which also happened to be the 52nd anniversary of Margrethe’s accession.
The news of Queen Margrethe’s abdication announcement came as a shock to Danes, according toThe Telegraph, since she had previously indicated she intended to reign for life. She is the first Danish sovereign to abdicate in nearly 900 years, the Danish Royal House said in astatement.
Queen Margrethe wasn’t the only one making history with her abdication: Mary is nowthe first queen consort to have been born in Australia.
source: people.com
