PEOPLE William & Kate

HAPPY 10TH TO WILLIAM & KATE! A DECADE AFTER THE WEDDING OF THE CENTURY, THEIR LOVE STORY CONTINUES • THE PRINCESS’S STYLE EVOLUTION PLUS HOW QUEEN ELIZABETH’S MARRIAGE WAS TESTED AT 10 YEARS RAISING ROYALS: LIFE WITH LOUIS, CHARLOTTE & GEORGE…

FROM THEIR COURTSHIP, to their wedding, as parents and as patrons of charitable causes, Prince William and Kate Middleton have changed what royal life can be. Their 10th year of marriage has seen the same extraordinary challenges so many of us have faced. Because of pandemic stay-at-home orders, “we’ve had to take on additional roles that others in our communities or in our lives would have helped us with,” Kate said at the start of this year. “I’ve become a hairdresser… much to my children’s horror.” The pair have also been homeschooling George, 7, Charlotte, 5, and Louis, 2, and conducting work by video. (To help, they’ve been given use of the Queen’s Sandringham country house, not far from their Anmer Hall home.) William has continued in his father’s environmentalist…

BACK IN THE DAY, 1540, Britain’s King Henry VIII had Thomas Cromwell advise him on a new bride, one who would become Queen as soon as they said their vows. (German-born Anne of Cleves was Henry’s pick; it didn’t work out, but she did get to keep her head.) Some 462 years later, Prince William, then a 19-year-old student at Scotland’s University of St. Andrews, sat with his own confidant, Eton buddy Fergus Boyd, at a college charity fashion show. It was there, in the spring of 2002, that he suddenly saw his classmate Kate Middleton, 20, in a new light. William had previously chatted up Kate at dorm parties—they both lived at St. Salvator Hall. But something was different as she strutted down the catwalk in a sheer-lace dress…

SAME GORGEOUS spectacle. Much different world. When hundreds of millions of online and TV viewers—2 billion, by some estimates—tuned in on April 29, 2011, to watch Prince William wed his college sweetheart Kate Middleton, they knew what to expect. There would be the grandeur, age-old traditions and pomp and circumstance that have held the world rapt since Queen Elizabeth’s 1947 wedding to Prince Philip of Greece was broadcast live over the radio to 200 million listeners. And for sure, it was all there: the jaw-dropping dress, gleaming horse-drawn carriages, a flyover by the Royal Air Force and cheers for newlywed kisses on the balcony of Buckingham Palace. But make no mistake, there were also plenty of signs that served to say: This is not your nan’s royal wedding. The most…

THE CALM BEFORE the storm of being parents and full-time working royals lasted a determinedly low-key two and a half years. Much of it was spent on the Welsh island of Anglesey, where Prince William would jog through the quiet town and greet locals, and the Duchess of Cambridge was a regular at the shops. Though Kate and William cherished their quiet, rustic life, they were by no means hermits, venturing out regularly for social occasions or royal duties. Just returned from their 10-day honeymoon in the Seychelles, they met U.S. President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama at Buckingham Palace. Over five frenetic days in June, they attended four major events. “Kate doesn’t seem at all fazed by anything,” Joe Little, managing editor of Britain’s Majesty magazine, told…

FROM THE MOMENT they strapped newborn son George into a car seat outside St. Mary’s Hospital, William and Kate have made it clear that what they want for their children is normalcy, as much as is possible, given that their firstborn is in direct line for the British throne. “I want George to grow up in a real, living environment,” William would later tell British GQ. “I don’t want him growing up behind palace walls, he has to be out there.” This past year provided a sort of imposed normalcy, as the Cambridges—now parents of three—were under stay-at-home orders, along with every other family in England, in an attempt to halt the spread of the coronavirus. That meant no visit to Sandringham for Christmas with the Queen; instead they celebrated…