A low-key royal couple. Prince EdwardAnd Sophie, Countess Of WessexThey had a royal wedding in 1999 but their romance began much earlier.
Queen Elizabeth II‘s youngest son first met his future bride in 1987 when she was working as a press officer at Capital Radio. At the time, the Earl of Wessex was dating Sophie’s friend, but when the duo reconnected in 1993, they were both single.
Edward proposed to Sophie while they were on vacation in The Bahamas in December 1998 after six years of dating. Sophie shared a simple explanation of why they were engaged when they made public their engagement announcement the following month. “I think we share a number of interests, we laugh a lot and we have a great friendship,” she explained in an interview.
Edward, for his part, added: “We are the very best of friends and that’s essential, but it also helps that we also love each other very much.”
The University of Cambridge graduate and the former publicist tied the knot in June 1999 at St George’s Chapel, which would later host the nuptials of Prince HarryAnd Meghan MarkleAs well as Princess EugenieAnd Jack Brooksbank. For the event, Sophie was given the queen’s “Anthemion” tiara, which some observers believe was constructed from elements originally used in Queen Victoria’s Regal Circlet.
Three years after the wedding, Sophie — who was raised in an upper middle-class family in Kent, England — ceased working in public relations and became a full-time working royal. She has since become a patron of numerous charities, including her and Edward’s foundation, The Earl and Countess of Wessex Trust, which they established in 1999.
Sophie became close to the queen and Prince Philip over the years and has praised the Duke of Edinburgh for being so supportive during his 73-year marriage.
“He’s always there for her,” Sophie said during a 2016 interview with ITV. “I think it must be a fairly lonely place being the queen. As a female in the top job, it’s important I think to have somebody that you can lean on, that you can discuss things with, that she can be open and honest with behind closed doors. For her to have found somebody like him, I don’t think she could have chosen better. And they make each other laugh, which I think is a half of a battle, isn’t it?’”
His daughter-in law, Philip’s daughter, spoke out about how much the royal family loved her father when he died at 99 in April 2021. “He’s left a giant-sized hole in our lives,” she said during a June 2021 appearance on BBC Radio 5 Live. “It’s only when you would do the normal things that you would have done with them and you suddenly realize that they are not there, that you really start to have a, ‘Oh, my goodness’ moment.”
Keep scrolling for a look back at Edward and Sophie’s complete relationship timeline.
