- Prince William and Kate Middleton dated for nine years before they eventually got engaged in 2010.
- Will was famously reluctant (opens in new tab) to move toward marriage and the couple took several breaks before getting their happily ever after.
- According to royal biographer Marcia Moody (opens in new tab), it was the domestic bliss the couple enjoyed when living together in Anglesey before their engagement that motivated Will to finally pop the question and take the next step in the relationship.
Prince William (opens in new tab) famously took his sweet time proposing to Kate Middleton. The couple had been together for nine years when Will finally popped the question (opens in new tab). So what made Will decide the time was right to propose to Kate in 2010? According to royal biographer Marcia Moody, it was living together in Anglesey that ultimately changed Will's mind about marriage.
In her 2013 book, Kate: A Biography (opens in new tab), Moody wrote about the couple's time living together in a five-bedroom beachside farmhouse, in rural Anglesey before they got engaged.
"[William] and Kate had spoken of marriage and they knew it was on the cards but it hadn’t been the right time, until now," she wrote of the magical time in their relationship, according to Express (opens in new tab).
Moody continued:
"Over the couple of years while they were based there, Kate looked after everything related to their home. Unlike other royals before him, William employed no domestic staff and Kate took care of it all...They both knew what was coming and knew that, although many good things would follow, it would also mean a life of increasing duty and less time to themselves."
That period of domestic bliss was apparently the turning point in Will and Kate's (opens in new tab) relationship, and in October 2010, he officially got down on one knee and invited Kate to join the royal family.
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