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Though they had a few ups and down prior to their April 2011 wedding, Prince William and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge appear to be the picture of marital bliss. The pair have been able to weather rumors and storms as a united force while always putting their royal duties and Queen Elizabeth II above everything else.

Additionally, they’ve done their best to raise their three children, Prince George, Princess Charlotte, and Prince Louis as normally as possible, despite the fact that the little royals are very much in the public eye. Though the pair have been married nearly a decade, they’ve been together for almost 20 years.

When most of us consider, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s love story, it seems that they were the perfect college sweethearts. However, the reality is that Prince William and Kate’s very first meeting was extremely embarrassing.

Kate Middleton and Prince William almost never met

The Cambridges met in 2001 when they were both first-year students at St. Andrews University. They quickly became fast friends. However, their meeting almost never happened. Once the duchess finished high school in 2000, she’d decided she wanted to attend the University of Edinburgh. However, at the very last minute, she decided to take a gap year and spending time in Chile and at the British Institute of Florence in Palazzo Dello Strozzino in Florence, Italy. When she returned after her year away, she decided that St. Andrews was where she wanted to continue her education.

The duke and duchess met very early on in the school year. However, they didn’t exactly have romantic sparks flying between them. In fact, Prince William was dating someone, and the duchess was dating an older medical student. Though they had the same circle of friends, it took some time for anything romantic to begin between the pair.

Prince William waited nearly 10 years before proposing to Kate Middleton

By the end of their first year, the duke and duchess were very much an item. However, the prince, who has always been very protective of his wife, was determined that the press did not get wind of his new romance. Also, since they were both so young, they certainly had a couple of ups and downs.

The Cambridges broke up once in 2004 and then again in 2007, in a much more public fashion. Though they got back together quickly following each breakup, by the time 2009 rolled around, the press had begun calling Kate, Waity Kaity. “I know that it was the Christmas of 2009 when [Kate’s mother] Carole was getting quite concerned. Kate was nearing 30, there was still no ring on her finger,” royal correspondent Katie Nicholl told Vanity Fair.

When the pair did eventually get engaged in November 2010, the prince revealed why he waited so long to pop the question. “I wanted to give her a chance to see in and back out if she needed to before it all got too much,” he said in their 2010 engagement interview. “I just wanted to give her the best chance to settle in and to see what happens on the other side.”

Kate Middleton and Prince William’s very first meeting was very embarrassing

The Cambridges have spoken openly about the very first time they met, and it wasn’t exactly a fairytale. Though the prince seemed hazy on the details of his very first encounter with his wife, the duchess had a clearer picture.

“Well, I actually think I went bright red when I met you and sort of scuttled off, feeling very shy about meeting you,” she said in their 2010 BBC interview with Tom Bradby. “Actually, William wasn’t there for quite a bit of the time initially, he wasn’t there for Freshers Week, so it did take a bit of time for us to get to know each other but we did become very close friends from quite early on.”

However, their first meeting was even more embarrassing than the duchess recalled. In his 2010 biography, William and Kate: A Royal Love Story, royal author Christopher Andersen claims that Kate curtsied when meeting William in their first-year dormitories. In shock, William spilt his drink all over himself, before Kate ran away.

Luckily the pair were able to recover from this.

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