How Marriage to Prince William Completely Transformed Kate Middleton’s Life 》

Over the years, many have fantasized about what it would be like to marry a prince. Of course, Kate Middleton gets to experience that reality every day. And she’s not just married to any prince…she’s married to Prince William, the future King of England!

For the most part, this marriage has changed Kate’s life for the better. She is both rich and famous, and she lives the kind of life most of us can only dream of. However, she had to sacrifice much of her old life to make it happen.

That’s because marrying William transformed Kate’s life in some negative ways as well. Keep reading to discover what those ways are and just how Kate has changed!

Staying mum on politics

Like everyone else, Kate Middleton has her own thoughts on political matters within her country. Unlike everyone else, though, she can never share them.

While royals aren’t politically restricted by law, everyone takes their cues from the late, great Queen Elizabeth. As Vanity Fair notes, Elizabeth strove to stay politically neutral, and following her lead, those in the Royal Family neither vote nor express political opinions.

This led to restrictions for Kate: she couldn’t wear black in solidarity at the 2018 BAFTAs, for example. And she must walk a fine line. For example, when she wrote a HuffPost article about supporting children’s mental health, it turned into a minor fight between her haters and her supporters about whether mental health is a “political” topic or not!

Following the royal dress code

The BAFTAs were not the only time that Kate couldn’t necessarily wear what she wanted to wear. In fact, she is constantly restricted because she has to deal with a pesky royal dress code.

As an example, Glamour reports that royals like Kate are expected to keep their coats on at all times indoors, no matter how warm it may be inside the house. And she can’t wear black unless she is specifically in mourning or it is Remembrance Day.

Interestingly, these rules even extend to royal bling like tiaras. Marie Claire notes how Kate wears tiaras reserved for married women and has to keep an immaculate hairdo while wearing it. With all these restrictions, spending extended time in America like Harry and Meghan are doing may seem like a good idea.

The dangers of wearing the wrong thing

Whenever she gets dressed, and specially dressed for a big event, Kate is always caught between two worlds. As we have detailed, she must avoid certain fashion choices to abide by the royal dress code. However, even when her outfit is code approved, she still may get dunked on in the court of public opinion.

As Harper’s BAZAAR points out, Kate got intense scrutiny in 2019 for wearing shorts. The fact that she had never been spotted wearing shorts after marrying William made the whole thing into a scene, and her detractors came out of the woodwork to mock her.

And then there was the 2018 BAFTAs that we mentioned before. During that event, many in attendance wore black to support Time’s Up, a movement focused on fighting sexual harassment. Kate wore a green dress with a black sash, effectively angering everybody. Time’s Up supporters thought she was snubbing the movement, even though royal protocol requires that she avoid making political statements. Meanwhile, the black sash–likely signaling her secret approval of the movement–made some think she was already being too political in her dress!

No more normal career

There are some members of the Royal Family allowed to have jobs. Most notably, this includes Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie. But when you’re as close to the crown as Kate is, you have to kiss a normal career goodbye.

And Kate really did have a normal career before marriage. She worked for Party Pieces, owned by her parents, and later served as an accessory buyer for Jigsaw. Jigsaw cofounder Belle Robinson confided to the Evening Standard that, even after she began dating William, Kate acted like she was just one of the gang. “She sat in the kitchen at lunchtime and chatted with everyone from the van drivers to the accounts girls.”

These days, Kate has a plethora of both royal and family duties. But as the royal stresses add up, those days of chatting with everyone on lunch break instead of having her every move scrutinized probably look better and better.

All about etiquette and protocol

For better or for worse, joining the Royal Family meant Kate had to suddenly live by a new set of rules. And if she broke any of these etiquette and protocol rules, it could cause a major scandal.

What kind of rules does she have to abide by? As Food and Wine points out, there is a right way and wrong way to drink tea. She has to stop eating whenever King Charles stops eating, and she has mastered giving a classic curtsy to the reigning monarch.

Perhaps the most famous bit of Kate-centric etiquette concerns how she sits. Sitting to the side and crossing her ankles is the royally-approved way for the future Queen of England to sit. And Kate has mastered the art so much that this sitting style has an unofficial nickname: “the duchess slant,” so named for both Kate’s royal title and the angle at which she sits.