Her Royal Highness celebrates her 47th birthday today. For that we wish her all the best and seize the chance to look back to 2001 when Mette-Marit Tjessem Hoiby married the Crown prince of Norway Haakon in Oslo. That wedding was in many ways a sensation as a young single mother tied the knot with Norway’s future king! What was unthinkable became reality and that marriage rang in a new, modern time for Norway’s monarchy but also set the tone for other monarchies in Europe to modernize. Years later Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden set to marry a commoner with no academic background and Crown prince Felipe of Spain married his wife Letizia who was a divorcee. All marriages have lasted and all royal couples and their respective children have emerged to be dignified and modern representatives of their countries! So in many ways Mette-Marit paved the way for the royal houses thought Europe to go with the times and modernize.

Gratulerer med dagen!