Prince William explains why he took so long to propose to Kate Middleton
Prince William has explained why he and Kate, the Princess of Wales, took so long to tie the royal knot. The now Prince and Princess of Wal…
Prince William has explained why he and Kate, the Princess of Wales, took so long to tie the royal knot.
The now Prince and Princess of Wales have been married for more than a decade, with their landmark royal wedding having officially joined the couple in 2011. The event was a long time coming, as they had spent eight years together beforehand.
The two first started dating in the early noughties, and Prince William was reportedly keen to leave it some time before he officially proposed. Speaking to ITV during their official engagement interview, the heir-to-the-throne told Tom Bradby exactly why this was the case.
He explained that he was acutely aware of the stresses of being tied to a royal and wished to give her a chance to “back out” if she felt she wouldn’t have been able to cope with life as a Queen. He told ITV: “I wanted to give her a chance to see in and to back out if she needed to before it all got too much.
“I’m trying to learn from lessons done in the past, and I just wanted to give her the best chance to settle in and to see what happens on the other side.” While the Prince didn’t want to overwhelm his then-potential future bride, he still proposed spectacularly.
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He proposed on October 20, 2010, during a romantic getaway to Kenya, where the couple was spending time in a cain hut on a wildlife reserve. The reserve, which was approximately 10,500 feet above sea level, served as a stunning staging ground for his proposal.
But, as he revealed to ITV, despite having spoken about the prospect of marriage for some time, he told how he “just decided” when the time was right. He explained: “We had a little private time away together with some friends, and I just decided that it was the right time, really.”
The Prince added: “We’d been talking about marriage for a while, so it wasn’t a massively big surprise, but I took her up somewhere nice in Kenya, and I proposed.” Kate felt the proposal was “very romantic”, with the future king revealing the occasion wasn’t entirely off the cuff.
He said he wanted to share his “romantic side” by putting some thought into the proposal. He added: “It just felt really right to ask in Africa. And I had done a little bit of planning of sorts to share my romantic side.”
