Crown Princess Mary of Denmark

Mary
Crown Princess of Denmark Countess of Monpezat
Crown Princess Mary in 2011
Born	(1972-02-05) 5 February 1972 (age 45) Hobart, Tasmania, Australia
Spouse	Frederik, Crown Prince of Denmark (m. 2004)
Issue	Prince Christian Princess Isabella Prince Vincent Princess Josephine
Full name Mary Elizabeth
Father	John Dalgleish Donaldson
Mother	Henrietta Clark Horne
Religion	Church of Denmark (Lutheran) prev. Presbyterian

Mary, Crown Princess of Denmark, Countess of Monpezat, R.E. (Mary Elizabeth; née Donaldson; born 5 February 1972) is the wife of Frederik, Crown Prince of Denmark. Frederik is the heir apparent to the throne, which means that should Frederik succeed, she will automatically become Queen of Denmark.

The couple met at the Slip Inn, a pub in Sydney when the prince was visiting Australia during the 2000 Summer Olympics. Their official engagement in 2003 and their marriage the following year was 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 Elizabeth Donaldson was born the youngest of four children to Scottish parents, Henrietta (née Horne), an executive assistant to the vice-chancellor of the University of Tasmania, and Dr John Dalgleish Donaldson, a mathematics professor. Her paternal grandfather was Captain Peter Donaldson (1911–1978). She was named after her grandmothers, Mary Dalgleish and Elizabeth Gibson Melrose, and was born and raised in Hobart, Australia. During her childhood, she was involved in sports and other extracurricular activities both at school and elsewhere. She studied music – playing piano, flute, and clarinet – and played basketball and hockey. Her mother died on 20 November 1997. In 2001, her father married the British author and novelist Susan Horwood.

In 1974, Donaldson started schooling in Clear Lake City Elementary School in Houston, Texas (where her father was working) and moved to Sandy Bay, Tasmania from 1975 to 1977. Her primary education, from 1978 to 1983, was at Waimea Heights with her secondary schooling (1984–1987) being at Taroona High School, and matriculation (1988–1989) at Hobart College. She studied at the University of Tasmania from 1990 to 1994, graduating with a combined Bachelor of Commerce and Bachelor of Laws degree on 27 May 1995. Between 1994 and 1996, she attended a graduate program and qualified with certificates in advertising from the Advertising Federation of Australia (AFA) and direct marketing from the Australian Direct Marketing Association (ADMA). Her native language is English, and she studied French during her secondary education. In 2002, she briefly worked as an English tutor in Paris. After meeting Frederik at the Slip Inn during the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, Donaldson studied Danish as a foreign language at Studieskolen in Copenhagen in 2003.