Prince William and Kate Middleton have a love story for the ages. The two met for the first time while studying at St. Andrews University, and after becoming friends, they fell in love. Prince William romantically proposed during an overseas trip to Kenya, and the wedding at Westminster Abbey was truly fit for a future king.

The preparations for Prince William and Kate Middleton’s wedding took months. Every detail had to be perfect, and of course, a lot of the talk was about Kate Middleton’s wedding dress.

While Prince William and Kate Middleton were involved in the planning, some things were out of their hands. For example, the future king was said to have been denied his wish to wear a different uniform than the one he wore. He was also reportedly “unhappy” with one major detail: the guest list.

Prince William and Kate Middleton’s decision to attend St Andrews University in Scotland changed their lives forever, as it was there they met for the first time.

William had taken a liking for the then 19-year-old Kate, who had just transferred from Marlborough College.

Prince William & Kate Middleton

In 2002, he bought a front-row ticket to a charity fashion show that Kate was featured in, spending around £200 for the seat.

Kate took to the catwalk in the now-legendary see-through dress, revealing her underwear underneath. By that point, William felt she wasn’t just a friend anymore but someone he had developed feelings for.

At first the two were good friends. In the fall of 2002, they moved into 13A Hope Street, an off-campus apartment, with friends Fergus Boyd and Olivia Bleasdale. However, it wasn’t a given that William would even be allowed to move into the off-campus apartment with Kate.

In 2023, the landlady Charlotte Smith recalled when William was to move in, the apartment had a strict no-boys policy.

“We’d had an unfortunate experience with some boys in the flat once before and we were determined not to have young men there again. Broken furniture, broken windows – there was a lot of damage, so that put us off really. I said to this young lady we’d really rather not have more boys and she said, ‘What if I were to tell you that it was Prince William?’” Smith told the Daily Mail.

Smith’s husband convinced her that the future king could move into the flat. It turned out that Prince William and Kate Middleton were “ideal tenants.”

“We arranged to meet Kate Middleton, Fergus and Olivia before they moved in but we thought we’d better not ask to see Prince William because we thought his credit rating must be quite good. But he insisted on meeting us,” she continued.

Prince William tried to impress Kate with “fancy dinners”

The now-Prince and Princess of Wales paid around £400 monthly at Hope Street.

In their engagement video, Prince William elaborated on their time in university: “We moved in together as friends because we were living together, we lived with a couple of others as well, it just sort of blossomed from there really,” William said. “We just saw more of each other, hung out a bit more and did stuff.”

So, was William a romantic guy? Well, he revealed that he cooked dinner for Kate. She admitted that “he would always come with a bit of angst and a bit of anger if something had gone wrong,” and that she “would have to wander in and save something that was going.”

“When I was trying to impress Kate, I was trying to cook these amazing fancy dinners, and what would happen was I would burn something, something would overspill, something would catch on fire and she would be sitting in the background trying to help, and basically taking control of the whole situation, so I was quite glad she was there at the time,” Prince William recalled.

On October 20, 2010, Prince William proposed to Kate Middleton during a holiday in Kenya. The prince had reportedly been carrying a ring in a bag for three weeks and never let it go. Kate had considered the idea that William might propose, but it came as a “total shock.”

“It was very romantic,” Kate said. “There’s a true romantic in there.”

The ring was exceptional and fitting for a future queen as it belonged to William’s mother, Princess Diana.

How Kate Middleton revealed her engagement to Prince William for her siblings

The proposal wasn’t a shock only to Kate but also to her family. The now-Princess of Wales decided to share the fantastic news during a night out with her siblings, James and Pippa, at the Old Boot pub near their parents’ house in Bucklebury, England.

“We sit in a corner, chattering quietly. Catherine whispers the news and says it will become public in the next day or so,” James wrote in his memoir Meet Ella: The Dog Who Saved My Life, per Us Weekly. “Pippa and I want to be visibly excited, but we have to tamp down our emotions so no one suspects a thing,” he added.

“We make a quiet acknowledgment that we’ll always be there for each other, look out for one another, support each other:”

Prince William decided to skip the longstanding tradition of asking the father of the bride permission to marry his daughter. He was “torn” about the decision and nervous about the possibility that he’d reject it.

On April 29, 2011, William and Kate tied the knot at Westminster Abbey in London. The wedding was planned to the minute, but Prince William was still troubled by some things leading up to the big day.

The royal outfits are always a big talking point during royal weddings, and of course it was no different for Prince William and Kate Middleton’s big day.

Prince William – uniform for the wedding

Kate MIddleton chose to wear an amazing Alexander McQueen dress, and before the wedding, Buckingham Palace announced what William was to wear: