Putting it mildly, this past year of King Frederik and Queen Mary of Denmark’s marriage has been interesting. From the highest of highs (Frederik and Mary taking the throne in January after his mother, Queen Margrethe’s, surprise abdication) to the lowest of lows (persistent affair rumors), Denmark’s King and Queen marked their landmark 20th wedding anniversary with a surprisingly casual photo aboard the Royal Ship Dannebrog.
May 14 marked two decades since the royal couple said I do, and the Danish Royal House shared a new photo of the couple matching in navy vests, Frederik’s arm wrapped around his wife’s shoulder. “In a few hours, the Royal Couple will arrive in Oslo and begin a state visit to Norway, after their Majesties sailed from Denmark yesterday with the Royal Ship Dannebrog,” courtiers captioned the photo on Instagram. “The arrival to the Norwegian capital also happens on a very special day. It’s the King and Queen’s 20th wedding anniversary,” they wrote alongside a heart emoji.
Per People, “The trip to Norway marks the couple’s second state visit in a few days, having kicked off the first official state visit of the new royal reign last week in Sweden,” the outlet reports. Frederik and Mary are traveling abroad to commemorate the close relationships between the Nordic monarchies, a statement said, and the tour will conclude in June and July in the Faroe Islands and Greenland, which are both in the Kingdom of Denmark.
On the evening of their anniversary, the couple will dress in their finest for a gala dinner at the Royal Palace of Norway. It follows a challenging time for the couple after allegations surfaced last November that then Crown Prince Frederik was having an affair after being photographed with Mexican-born socialite Geneveva Casanova in Madrid, Spain. Casanova denied all allegations of a romantic relationship, and just two months later, Margrethe—the last remaining female monarch globally after the death of Queen Elizabeth in September 2022—stunned the world by announcing her abdication after 52 years on the throne. In doing so, she became the first Danish sovereign to voluntarily abdicate in nearly 900 years.
Frederik and Mary had a chance meeting during the Sydney Olympics in 2000, where Mary Donaldson—then an Australian advertising executive—met “Fred” at the Slip Inn on Sydney’s Darling Harbor. “Something clicked,” Mary later said in a 2005 interview. “It wasn’t the fireworks in the sky or anything like that, but there was a sense of excitement.”
Not long after they met, Mary learned she had just met the Crown Prince of Denmark, heir to the Danish throne. “The first time we met, we shook hands,” Mary said. “I didn’t know he was the prince of Denmark. Half an hour later, someone came up to me and said, ‘Do you know who these people are?’”
Less than four years later, the couple—who dated long distance before getting engaged—were married at Copenhagen Cathedral on May 14, 2004. Per The Daily Mail, “with tears in his eyes at the altar, Frederik, the future King of Denmark, vowed ‘From today, Mary is mine and I am hers. I love her, and I will protect her with all my love.’”
The romance continued at their wedding reception, when Frederik gave a toast to his bride and said “I had only been in Australia two days before our fates were sealed, even though neither of us was aware of it,” he said. “But your radiance shone clearly for me from our very first meeting. Since then I have been blinded by it, and totally dependent on it. The joy and the strength you give me is like the sun in the daytime which, with its radiance, melts all doubts and darkness on earth. And like the moon at night, you shine with a watchful and delicate beam of gentleness, which extinguishes the mischief and deceit used by the symbols of darkness.”
The King and Queen are parents to four children, including Crown Prince Christian, who will inherit the Danish throne someday.
