- When Queen Margrethe II abdicates on January 14th, Princess Mary will become Queen of Denmark.
- She shares the position of Queen-in-waiting with Kate Middleton, Princess of Wales.
- From their similar sense of style to their upbringings, here’s everything Kate and Mary have in common.
In less than a week, Princess Mary will take up her new role as Queen of Denmark.
The change in her status comes after Queen Margrethe II of Denmark announced that she would officially abdicate on January 14. Her eldest son, Prince Frederick, will take over the Danish throne in her place.
Mary married Frederic in 2004, meaning she spent 20 years as queen.
Kate Middleton, Princess of Wales, has followed a similar path. She can only become queen if her husband Prince William inherits the throne from King Charles III.
But Mary and Kate have more in common than meets the eye, beyond being queens-in-waiting. please look.
Neither Kate nor Mary were born into aristocratic families.
Mary, who has been a member of the Danish royal family for 20 years, was born in Tasmania, Australia, in 1972. Mary lived a relatively normal life until she met Frederick in a Sydney pub in 2000, People reported. She works as an executive at an advertising agency.
Similarly, Kate did not come from an aristocratic background before joining the British royal family. She was born in Reading, England to her parents, Carol and Michael, who met through her work in the aviation industry, after which she set up a successful party planning business.
Before marrying William in 2011, Kate worked as an accessories buyer for Jigsaw and helped her parents with their business, Town & Country reported.
Both had traditional royal weddings, wearing dresses made by designers from their respective countries.
Mary and Frederick’s wedding took place on May 14, 2004 at Copenhagen Cathedral. Their wedding was attended by many European royalty and culminated with the couple kissing on the balcony of Christian VII’s Palace to the cheers of thousands of onlookers.
Frederic wore traditional Danish military uniform, and Mary commissioned Danish designer Uffe Frank to create an ivory wedding dress made from Duchess satin for her big day. paid homage to.
Seven years later, Kate and William tied the knot in a similar traditional style. Their wedding took place at Westminster Abbey in London, before appearing on the balcony of Buckingham Palace, where they shared a precious moment of PDA.
Like Mary, Kate paid homage to her homeland with a bespoke dress designed by Sarah Burton, creative director of British luxury fashion house Alexander McQueen. Her sleeves feature delicate floral embroidery, a subtle nod to her four countries that make up the United Kingdom.
They don’t just share a sense of style; Mary and Kate actually wear the same outfit several times.
In addition to their similar approach to wedding dresses, Kate and Mary also have similar fashion tastes, with Karl Lagerfeld once telling WWD that he considered Kate to be Mary’s “sister.”
In their respective public appearances, they have shown that they love elegant summer dresses, power suits, smart casual looks, and mixing high street brands and luxury items in their wardrobes. The two are also known to be fans of the same designer, with Kate wearing a similarly colored Beulah dress to Wimbledon 2021 that Mary wore to an art exhibition in Denmark two years ago. appeared.
Just as Duchess Kate has a reputation for recycling clothes, Mary said she is also a fan of sustainable fashion, the Evening Standard reported.
In 2021, she spoke about her support for vintage clothing at the Copenhagen Fashion Summit. This is because second-hand clothing “tells the history of a product: who wore it before, where it was, and what kind of journey it took.”
Kate and Mary are both mothers of future European kings.
Frederick and Mary have four children: Prince Christian, Princess Isabella, Prince Vincent, and Princess Josephine. If Margrethe abdicates, the couple’s eldest son Christian, 18, will become first in line to the throne after his father.
Duchess Kate and Prince William have three children: Prince George, Princess Charlotte, and Prince Louis. George, 10, is second in line to the throne after his father and grandfather King Charles.
They both share a passion for philanthropy.
Mary and Duchess Kate have used their position as princesses to launch various charities.
The Danish royal is chairman of the Mary Foundation, an organization she started in 2007 to fight bullying, domestic violence and loneliness, according to the royal family’s website.
Meanwhile, Kate participates in several charity and sponsorship activities. The royal family’s website says she is focused on her early childhood development and mental health.
Mary and Kate also collaborate on charity projects. In 2022, Duchess Kate accompanied Prince William on a royal visit to Denmark, during which she accompanied Mary to the Danner Crisis Center, which supports women and children affected by domestic violence.
Kate and Mary are not technically queens, but consorts of the queen.
When Kate and Mary’s husbands become kings, they technically become queen consorts (a title given to the female spouses of the current monarch).
That’s because the title “queen” is usually given to a sitting female monarch, not the monarch’s spouse, BI’s Samantha Grindel reported.
However, the titles held by the spouses of monarchs vary depending on the monarchy. Before her death in 2022, Queen Elizabeth said she wanted Prince Charles’ wife Camilla to be known as her “Queen Consort.”
Meanwhile, Queen Margrethe II said in her abdication announcement on December 31, 2023 that once Frederick ascends to the throne, Mary will be known as “Queen Mary.”
Kate and Mary have also starred in royal dramas.
Since becoming princess in 2011, Duchess Kate has weathered several royal scandals.
These include her strained relationship with Prince William’s Meghan Markle and Prince Harry, her disastrous royal tour to the Caribbean in 2022, and most recently, one of the royals with whom Duchess Kate has allegedly misbehaved. It is reported that the names are listed as, but are not limited to. Racist comments in the Dutch version of Omid Scobie’s Endgame.
Neither Kensington Palace nor Buckingham Palace responded to BI’s requests for comment about Endgame, which was pulled from a Dutch bookstore.
Meanwhile, Mary has been dealing with her share of royal drama lately. In November, the Spanish tabloid Recturas published an article showing the crown prince spending time with a popular Mexican socialite without his wife, and his relationship with Frederic came into the spotlight.
In a statement to Hola!, socialite Genoveva Casanova denied the affair allegations and said she would take legal action to protect her rights to “honour, truth and privacy.”
Meanwhile, a representative of the Danish royal family told BI: “We do not comment on rumors or innuendos.”