Happy anniversary, King Felipe and Queen Letizia

IT'S exactly 15 years ago today (Wednesday) since Crown Prince Felipe of Asturias and the famous face of the ten o'clock news on Spain's first channel, TVE – reporter Letizia Ortiz – tied the knot in front of millions of television viewers at Madrid's Almudena Cathedral, a day which saw the accomplished journalist suddenly thrust into the spotlight and analysed by the media.

A commoner, a divorcée, granddaughter of radio DJ Menchu Álvarez del Valle – her grandmother, who is still living and aged 91 – a media graduate with a bachelor's and a master's from Madrid's Complutense University who has worked for ABC, Bloomberg TV, CNN, EFE, various newspapers in her home city of Oviedo, Asturias and the Diario Siglo XXI in Guadalajara, México where she studied her unfinished PhD, the brand-new Princess Letizia was inevitably compared and contrasted with the late Princess Diana following her 2004 wedding to the future King of Spain.

Even Letizia's friends did not know just how famous her fiancé was, and constantly badgered her to tell them more about her 'mystery man' – although the woman who is now Queen of Spain cryptically and repeatedly told them they would 'find out soon enough'.

Probably the first Royal on earth to have been reporting on the scene from the September 11 Twin Towers attack, the sinking of the Prestige and the invasion of Iraq, Letizia was married for just a year to her old language and literature teacher from Ramiro de Maetzu high school in Madrid, Alonso Guerrero Pérez, after having been going out for 10 years.

Theirs was a civil wedding in the town hall in Almendrajo (Badajoz province, Extremadura), and she was divorced by the age of 26.

Spanish viewers who had seen Letizia's face on their TV every evening over dinner and barely noticed her were stunned to find out that her wedding to the heir to the throne was just six months away, and bars and restaurants all over the country televised the ceremony live.

She was just 31 and had led a completely civilian and relatively ordinary, middle-class life until then, but the general consensus in the media was that she would have few, if any problems adapting to becoming a full-time Royal.

Indeed, the next three years or would be a rollercoaster of exceptional highs and extreme lows – from the euphoria of the Charles-and-Diana-style 'balcony kiss' on May 22, 2004 and their honeymoon in the un-exotic, but beautiful, Castilla-La Mancha province of Cuenca, the couple were all smiles as they announced the birth of their first child Leonor on October 31, 2005, all tears when Letizia's paternal grandfather died that same year, and when Letizia was heavily pregnant with their second daughter Sofía, the now-Queen's sister Érika died suddenly.

This was on February 6, 2007, three months before Sofía's birth, when Letizia received the devastating news that the 31-year-old interior and graphic designer had committed suicide at home.

Almost certainly it was her daughter's birth that helped Princess Letizia through her grief and, in tribute to her mother-in-law, Queen Sofía, for her valuable help and support at the start of her Royal life, Letizia named her new baby after her.

It was likely that HRH Letizia's 'baby duties', as well as caring for Princess Leonor through the 'terrible twos', that helped keep her occupied the following year when she lost her grandmother Enriqueta Rodríguez Figueredo, at age 89.

Longevity seems to run in Letizia's family: as well as her DJ grandmother Menchu's turning 91 this year, her maternal grandfather, who passed away four years ago, lived to be 97.

Friends and close associates of the Royal couple say their relationship is based upon mutual trust, understanding and admiration, and they are regularly spotted on film or in photographs sharing loving looks, smiles and whispers.

HRH Letizia was photographed smiling ear-to-ear and kissing her husband energetically on the day he was declared King – June 19, 2014 - after the abdication of his father, Juan Carlos I, in an austere ceremony that did not involve a coronation, in order to reflect the times as Spain was just coming out of a financial crisis with its highest-ever level of unemployment.

In keeping with this sentiment, their daughters' first communion ceremonies lacked any of the usual pomp and circumstance, and instead saw them each being confirmed along with the rest of their classes at school, and in uniform, before a family-only celebration was held at home.

Princess Leonor's birth forced a change to the Spanish Constitution, so that if she were later to have a younger brother, he would not be able to leapfrog her to succeed their father in line to the throne; however, Queen Letizia and King Felipe only have daughters, meaning Leonor will one day be Queen of Spain.

She has been in training for the role since birth, undertook her first official Royal engagement within days of her 13^th birthday, and will be required to undertake military service as she will automatically become the highest-ranking member of the Armed Forces on the day she is crowned.

The photographs show Crown Prince Felipe and Letizia Ortiz on their wedding day in May 2004, and King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia this year, on their first official visit as monarchs to Buenos Aires, Argentina.