¡¡¡¡Mary Donaldson

¡¡¡¡Old Life: Australian lawyer

¡¡¡¡Royal Life: Queen of Denmark

¡¡¡¡You can't get farther from the palaces of Europe than the remote places of Australia. But that's where Donaldson, 31, grew up, in a small home in Taroona on the island of Tasmania. The daughter of a college professor and a university vice-chancellor2, she moved to Sydney to pursue a law career and met Denmark's Crown Prince Frederik, 35, at a disco during the 2000 Olympics. Within a year Donaldson had moved to Copenhagen to be near her love, trading the courtroom for classes in protocol3 to fit in with4 one of Europe's oldest royal families. But as her May wedding approaches, Donaldson insists she is still an average Australian girl at heart, telling reporters she watched the wedding of Prince Charles and Diana on TV as a kid but wasn't impressed. ¡°I wasn't thinking about becoming a princess,¡± she said. ¡°I actually dreamt of becoming an animal doctor.¡±

¡¡¡¡Letizia Ortiz

¡¡¡¡Old Life: TV journalist

¡¡¡¡Royal Life: Future Queen of Spain

¡¡¡¡Her mother is a nurse and her father a newspaper reporter, but Ortiz, 31, doesn't let her fianc¨¦£µ¢Ÿ Crown Prince Felipe of Spain, control her actions. When Felipe, 35, interrupted her during a press conference to announce their engagement, she grabbed his arm and said: ¡°Let me finish!¡± Introduced by friends at a dinner party last spring, the couple kept their love a secret until last autumn and decided marry in May. Though she has been married before to a college professor, that wedding was a civil ceremony, so she and Felipe can still have the church wedding his conservative Catholic6 parents want. ¡°It's like a fairy tale,¡± says Ana Campillo, a journalist who knows Ortiz. ¡°Not because she is marrying a prince but because she is marrying a man she loves.¡±

¡¡¡¡Claire Coombs

¡¡¡¡Old Life: Land surveyor

¡¡¡¡Royal Life: Belgian princess

¡¡¡¡For years most Belgians assumed that Laurent, 40, the youngest son of King Albert¢òand Queen Paola and eighth in line to his country's throne, would never marry, preferring fast cars to settling down. But after a Brussels dinner party in 2000, the prince decided to help with the dishes and wound up washing7 and drying with fellow guest Coombs, 29, the softspoken8 daughter of a British businessman and a Belgian mother. When the prince proposed two years later, he flushed so red with nervousness that Coombs, who worked at a surveyor's office in Wavre, Belgium, until her April 2003 wedding, burst out laughing9. Since then, the pair have avoided the media. Family and friends give Claire credit for slowing Laurent down10.

¡¡¡¡A Prince Makes a Sacrifice for Love

¡¡¡¡Not all fairy tales are the same. Last year, when Prince Johan Friso, 35, third in line for the throne of the Netherlands11, announced his engagement to Mabel Wisse Smit, 35, the head of a Brussels-based human rights organization, his mother, Queen Beatrix, was very happy to be gaining a ¡°lovable and talented¡± daughter-in-law. That is, until the media uncovered Wisse Smit's past relationship with a drug lord, which she had kept from the Dutch parliament, whose members must approve highranking royal marriages, rather than call off the wedding, Johna Friso gave up his right to the throne and weded Wisse Smit in a quiet April ceremony.

¡¡¡¡Ari Behn

¡¡¡¡Old Life: Author

¡¡¡¡Royal Life: Consort12 of Princess Martha Louise of Norway

¡¡¡¡Royalty marrying common people is old news in liberal Norway, where Crown Prince Haakon wed single mom Mette-marit Tjessem Hoiby in 2001. So it was no shock to the Norwegian royals when Princess Martha, 32, announced her engagement to former playboy Behn, an author. Martha, who met Behn through his mother, one of her college tutors, didn't mind. ¡°He makes me shine,¡± she said. Since their 2002 wedding, Behn has settled down, becoming a proud papa to baby Maud Angelica. King Harald said, ¡°Who hasn't done one or two bad things in their youth?¡±