His fiancee, Charlene, is from South Africa and competed in the Olympics in swimming for that country. She is 32, twenty years younger than her groom. According to PEOPLE they have been dating on and off for ten years, but other sources say that they met at the Winter Olympics in Torino. If it's been ten years then she ties Kate Middleton for woman who has had to wait for years for her prince to propose. No matter, the future princess who has been living in Monaco for the past 3 years has been tutored in protocal by her future sisters-in-law. Really? Princess Caroline and Stephanie would be the last two people I would look to for advice on protocal. Particularly Stephanie.
This engagement ends speculation that Prince Albert is gay, rumors which have been floating around for years. The dude has two illegitimate children, not that proves anything, so did Richard the Lionheart and Edward II. My feeling is that Prince Albert waited so long because of his sisters distasterous track record with marriage. Princess Caroline traded up when she married HRH Prince Ernst but now she's stuck with a guy who gets drunk and likes to pee on things in public, and Princess Stephanie who married her bodyguard, got divorced, had a baby out of wedlock and then ran off with the circus. How do you compete with that? Also, Albert being single meant that Princess Caroline's son Andrea would inherit the throne which won't happen if Charlene gives birth to an heir which is entirely possible since she's only 32. What do you want to bet that they have a baby 9 months after the wedding just like Princess Grace?
I myself am looking forward to seeing what the bride is going to wear next year. She wore a lovely dress to Princess Victoria's wedding in Sweden, which of course should have been a sign that an engagement was iminent.
