Picture it: August, 2001, Oslo. The bride has A Past; the groom Is (or is on his way to being) Hot. It’s the first royal wedding in Norway since 1968! Let’s get into it.

Fun facts:

a. Dr. Wiki notes, “Because of the background of the bride, the wedding was frequently referred to in publications as ‘unconventional’ and ‘uncommon,’ and Mette-Marit as a modern-day Cinderella.” Said euphemisms are being employed because M-M (a) was a waitress, (b) had a son from a previous relationship, (c) said previous relationship was with a drug kingpin, and  (d)  “had a ‘well-known past in Oslo’s dance-and-drugs house-party scene,'” AKA, she really used to party.  It seems like Norway, after a period of pearl-clutching, evolved to be more-or-less cool about this — which is refreshing!! — and so was Haakon’s family, in party because his own mother was a commoner and apparently it was a real PITA for his father, King Harald V, to talk his parents into letting him marry now-Queen Sonja. (It took nearly 10 years for them to go for it! Harald V told them that he’d NEVER marry and the dynastic line would DIE OUT if they didn’t let him marry her, which is very romantic. He seems, from what I can glean from Professor Wiki, like a very decent dude. He doesn’t even have a “controversies” section of his Wikipedia!)

b. Mette-Marit, on the other hand, might be working her way towards having one. In addition to having a slightly misspent youth, apparently she occasionally took some meetings with Jeffrey Epstein? That guy sure was good at making rich-and-powerful friends!  She claims she should have done more research on him and stopped meeting with him because he seemed like a user (I paraphrase); from what I can tell from Google-translated articles in Norwegian media, Norway was not pleased when this news came out and might in fact still be sort of pissed about it.

c.  The groom has a BA in political science from Berkeley and doing a little math….was at Cal when my friend Dave was there, which means I am only like twenty or thirty degrees of separation from being Crown Princess of Norway.

d. This wedding was a real festival of Scandinavian royals: Crown Prince Frederick of Denmark was best man, and Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden did a reading. I assume they’re all on a Scandi Heir to the Throne Whats-App where they make fun of Prince Charles’s pocket squares.

e. The bride’s gown is very sparse and beautiful; it was designed by Ove Harder Finseth. Her tiara is possibly a hand-me-down from Cate Blanchett.

Let’s look at what everyone wore!

[Photos: Getty Images, Shutterstock]