Crown Princess Mary
~Princess of Denmark~
photo> SMW
About her
Mary, Crown Princess of Denmark, Countess of Monpezat, (née Mary Elizabeth Donaldson; born 5 February 1972) is the wife of Frederik, Crown Prince of Denmark.The couple met at the Slip Inn, a pub in Sydney, when the Crown Prince was visiting Australia during the 2000 Summer Olympics. Their official engagement in 2003 and their marriage the following year were the subject of extensive attention from Australian and European news media, which portrayed the marriage as a modern fairytale romance between a prince and a commoner
Mary Donaldson was born the youngest of the four children of mathematician and Professor John Dalgleish Donaldson (born 5 September 1941) and his first wife, Henrietta "Etta" Clark Donaldson, née Horne, (12 May 1942 – 20 November 1997), who had migrated from Scotland to Australia in 1963. Mary has three older siblings:
Jane Alison Stephens (a pharmacist) (b. 26 December 1965);
Patricia Anne Bailey (an intensive care nurse) (b. 16 March 1968);
John Stuart Donaldson (a geologist, b. 9 July 1970).
Henrietta Donaldson, Mary's mother, was Executive Assistant to the Vice Chancellor of the University of Tasmania. In 2001, five years after her death, Mary's father, Professor John Donaldson remarried. His second wife is English author and novelist Susan Elizabeth Donaldson, née Horwood, known by pseudonym Susan Moody
Mary was born and raised in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia. She attended Waimea Heights Primary School from 1978 to 1982. She completed her secondary education at Taroona High School and Hobart Matriculation College before studying at the University of Tasmania for five years. Upon graduation Mary moved to Melbourne to work in advertising.
As a girl, Mary was heavily involved in sports and other extracurricular activities both at school and elsewhere. She studied piano, flute, clarinet and played basketball and hockey. Her early love of horses led her to ride competitively as a teenager, on her horse, Diana.
