Juan Carlos and Sofía, 60 years of a wedding from which there is nothing to celebrate

• Monarchy The unexpected reconciliation of Don Juan Carlos and Doña Sofía: "I'm better than ever with Juanito"

• Líos Sofia's loyalty to Juanito in the face of Corinna's betrayal

• Anniversary It is the 65th anniversary of the first meeting between Don Juan Carlos and Doña Sofía in the 'Agamemnon'

Any European monarchy in which its kings reached their

jubilee would organize extraordinary splendor as is typical of such a unique institution.

On May 14, Don Juan Carlos and Doña Sofía celebrate

of marriage.

But nobody can be surprised that

in any way.

The Emeritus has lived in Abu Dhabi for almost two years and it is not yet known when he will make his first visit to Spain, although it is expected to be

His image has been seriously damaged by all the rosary of personal scandals that first forced him to abdicate and then shook the Crown, which has gone through

of our recent history.

And, above all, today the citizens know that this marriage has been

In fact, it was surprising that the protagonists

Today the pieces of the puzzle are fitting together and it is understandable that a decade ago they no longer wanted to make such a gesture towards the gallery.

However, that wedding of

- actually there were four - celebrated on a splendid May 14, 1962 in Athens will forever be a

for our country.

Well that is why we look back and remember it.

And it is that the marriage that united the then Prince Juan Carlos -

-, little more than

family -the exiled

and

de las Mercedes- who did not yet know what Franco's intentions were for him and the dynasty, with Princess Sofia of Greece, daughter of Paul I, who then reigned in the country of the Hellenes, would be decisive for

with the time of the monarchy in Spain with Juan Carlos as king.

The couple had met when they were just teenagers.

And it is that, in 1954, Juan Carlos, with 16 years, and Sofía, with one less, coincided with an almost endless list of members of the Götha in the famous

organized by Queen Federica, mother of our current Emeritus , a bit like a matchmaker.

Her wish was, on the one hand,

with an event that had so much repercussion in the media of the time;

and, on the other, he wanted the marriageable young royals to meet each other, given that the hardships in much of Europe after World War II had not led to too many encounters between them.

If real weddings came out of it, honey on flakes.

There was no crush

between the two lovebirds.

In fact, they seem to have seen very little of each other during that cruise.

And in later years they were seen again in

such as the 1960 Rome Olympics.

But when they became more intimate was in June 1961, on the occasion of the wedding in London of

in which he wanted the protocol that Juan Carlos and Sofía would have to form a couple.

By then, the Greek princess had already been disillusioned with the possibility of marrying Harald of Norway.

And her love resume was practically blank.

Not so that of the eldest son of the Barcelona, ​​who was already known to have romances such as those he had had with

or with the Italian princess

, who could have been a candidate for Juan Carlos's wife if this had not put Franco's hair stands on end.

The bond of our protagonists

the wedding of the Kents.

Everything was arranged fundamentally between Queen Federica and Don Juan, with the collaboration of Queen

, already the widow of

.

In fact, Juan Carlos's father took care that Franco found out when the thing was practically closed.

The marriage proposal took place on September 12, 1961 at the Beau Rivage hotel in Lausanne, the Swiss city where Victoria Eugenia lived.

That day the well-known episode took place in which Juanito

with the ring inside it, shouting "Sofi, take it!"

It was not easy for the wedding to take place.

Numerous difficulties had to be overcome.

of the suitability of the daughter of the Greek kings as Princess of Spain was the first.

The dictator had many misgivings and preferred that Juan Carlos, who, let us remember, had not yet been designated as his successor,

even if he did not have any drop of blue blood in his veins.

The religion of the contracting parties

was another obstacle, the greatest.

Many diplomatic watermarks had to be made to find a solution.

Juan Carlos, a Catholic, could not not marry according to the canons of the true faith.

And the daughter of the Greek sovereign was

The Vatican had to give its arm to twist.

Fortunately, Queen Federica and Don Juan ran into the good-natured

on the throne of San Pedro.

In the end, as is well known, everything was arranged with the celebration of

different: one in the Catholic cathedral of San Dionisio, adorned with thousands of red and yellow carnations as a nod to the Spanish flag;

and another in the Metropolitan Cathedral of Athens, in which the beautiful ritual of the crowns on the heads of the bride and groom took place.

If we add to these two yeses the ones that the bride and groom gave each other to formalize the papers before the Greek and Spanish registries, we already have the

by the Hellenic Parliament

had also been a political problem prior to the wedding .

The deputies of the left put their obstacles.

And someone wanted it to be clarified what would happen if the marriage leaked;

It seemed that already then the boy from Barcelona generated suspicions.

The wedding could finally take place.

was described by the Greek press, which paid maximum attention to the wedding that

including 143 members of 27 dynasties.

In Spain, on the other hand, it is known that the Franco regime

And today the efforts of the censorship produce hilarity so that no image of Don Juan at the wedding of his son is spread.

What has happened these six decades is another story, now well known.

But it is fair to highlight

so that her husband consolidated her position in the final stretch of the dictatorship and, with it, the monarchy could be restored in 1975. The Greek ended up putting the dictator in the pocket.

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