Whatever happened to 3 Hong Kong-raised women who became princesses after marrying into European royalty – Alexandra Manley, Marie-Chantal Miller and Alexandra Miller?
It may have started with a kiss in Central, but where are they now? For some, it has been a case of living happily ever after – but not for all
Many young children grow up reading stories of the ordinary girl marrying a prince – but they are usually only in fairy tales. Well, we all know the fairy tale came true for Meghan Markle who married Prince Harry, but it also happened for three Hong Kong-raised women 25 years ago.
Hong Kong was abuzz in the summer of 1995 as not one, but three Hong Kong women were engaged to European princes – Alexandra Manley, Marie-Chantal Miller and her younger sister Alexandra Miller.
Alexandra Manley was born and raised in Hong Kong. Of Eurasian descent, Manley was christened at Saint John’s Cathedral and attended Quarry Bay Junior School from 1969 to 1971 and then went on to Glenealy and Island School.
She studied international business at Vienna University of Economics and Business in Austria and also studied in England and Japan before coming back to Hong Kong where she worked in sales and marketing.
She met Prince Joachim of Denmark, the younger son of Queen Margrethe II of Denmark, at a party in Hong Kong in 1994, when he was working for shipping company Maersk in the city. By the summer of 1995 it was announced they were engaged to be married, the prince proposed to Manley while they were vacationing in the Philippines. They were married in Denmark in November of the same year. Joachim was 25 years old and Manley 30 at the time.
“Fairy tale wedding day for Denmark’s new princess”, was the headline in the SCMP at the time, and it reported how Manley had been married “in a dress of thick Italian silk embroidered with 8,900 pearls”, and that “her bouquet featured Hong Kong’s own bauhinia flower” and “the vast Frederiksborg Castle Church was decorated with more than 10,000 blooms cascading down its columns and covering the silver and gold altar”. The festivities continued at Fredensborg Palace as Alexandra Manley became Her Royal Highness Princess Alexandra of Denmark.
The royal couple had two sons, Prince Nikolai William Alexander Frederik born in August 1999 and Prince Felix Henrik Valdemar Christian born in July 2002. She was popular with the Danish people, dubbed the Diana of the North. However, the marriage did not last and in September 2004 the couple announced their separation – the first Danish royals to divorce since 1846. In 2007 Manley married Danish filmmaker Martin Jørgensen but they divorced in 2015. She is now known as Alexandra, Countess of Frederiksborg.