Plenty of good (and bad) examples.
Love is in the air! Valentine’s Day is coming and that means we are planning lots of dates and gifts for our great loves – or a single evening on the couch with a romantic movie and a large tub of ice cream, that’s also possible. As the day of love, it is of course also the time to take the next step in your relationship, and many proposals take place on February 14. Could you use some inspiration or do you just want to swoon? We list the most special royal proposals.
Willem-Alexander and Máxima: on the ice
In the late 1990s, the Dutch Crown Prince Willem-Alexander and the Argentinian career woman Máxima Zorreguieta meet at a party, and in the following years the couple gets to know each other. This can be done in relative anonymity, because no one knows the couple in Máxima’s home base of New York.
On January 19, 2021, the time has come and Willem-Alexander will ask his great love to marry him while they are skating on the pond of Huis ten Bosch Palace. “It was a beautiful Friday afternoon and I thought: Máxima should learn to skate, because what could be more Dutch than skating?” the king said to the NOS. So the future monarch got down on one knee in front of Máx on the ice.
Harry and Meghan: romance in the backyard
There are few royal proposals that we know as much about as the Sussexes’ supreme moment. In their Netflix documentary Harry & Meghan, we even got a small glimpse of the scene through Duchess Meghan. Harry and his other half also look back on the special moment together. So the evening at their Nottingham Cottage started off quite normally, with Meghan preparing the chicken for dinner. Meanwhile, a nervous Harry is fiddling with electric candles in the backyard and decides to uncork a bottle of champagne for the occasion.
“That gave it away a bit,” Harry revealed afterwards. “She said, ‘You never drink champagne! Is there a special reason?’ and I said: ‘No idea, I just happened to have that lying around, whatever’”. Ultimately, the prince gets down on one knee in front of his Meghan on a rug in the garden – in the presence of Meghan’s beagle, Guy. Cute!
William and Kate: on safari
After a relationship of about eight years, the time finally came in 2010 and Prince William proposed to his great love Kate. The news was announced on November 16, but the proposal itself had already taken place a few weeks earlier at a very special location!
Wills and Kate stayed together at the time at the Lewa Wildlife Conservancy in Kenya, where William spent part of his gap year almost ten years earlier. A location with a particularly personal connection and of course that sapphire ring from the late Princess Diana… it doesn’t get much more romantic and personal. In the interview after their engagement, Kate herself said that she had not seen it coming at all. “There’s a real romantic in there – I didn’t expect it at all!”
Juan Carlos and Sofía: what not to do
By the way, not all royal proposals are so romantic and well thought out. The Spanish king Juan Carlos and his Sofía were said to have been good friends for years, until a romantic spark ignited between the two. However, Juan Carlos’s unromantic proposal will have had little effect on this.
According to the stories, he had an engagement ring made from melted Greek coins (a sweet nod to Sofía’s status as a Greek princess) and then threw it, box and all, to his intended bride with the words “Sofí, catch!” Aiiii…The fact that the marriage ultimately ended in disgrace – despite the absence of a divorce – suddenly no longer sounds so surprising.
Well. Maybe that tub of ice cream and that rom-com aren’t a bad idea for this Valentine’s Day after all.
Source: The Daily Mail, Glamial archive | Image: NL Image
