Aibu to think it was not possible for Carole Middleton to engineer her daughters marriage?

[Bahhumbug23]

https://www.marieclaire.com/celebrity/royals/carole-middleton-master-plan/

Kate was staunchly middle class. The royals are notoriously snobby. Aibu to think that Carole did not & wouldn't be capable of engineering this? How the hell would she be able to do this?!

if Katie Caballo is a 6, W. is more like a 2, so there's also that aspect, making it more feasible.

I find this idea hilarious. Anyone who knows the university entry system knows you need to apply, get offers, achieve the grades.. You can’t just see that Prince William is off to St Andrews and blindly follow.
Tabloid nonsense.

She literally changed her university, deferred a year, took the same exams and purposefully got his attention dressed in lingerie. There was manipulation there from day1. Will never understand why people like Kate.

They definitely took steps to put her in the running, so to speak.

She was supposed to go to Edinburgh and she transferred to St A's once it was announced he was going there.

He did a gap year/placement thing, she tried to get on to exactly the same one but couldn't.

I do believe the stories from girls she went to school with, that she fancied him and had posters on her wall. As much as she might try to deny it, because it's embarrassing!

Of course the mother couldn't engineer the entire relationship, but I think Kate was strategically placed for it to be a possibility and it worked!

Catherine married down, a man of below average intelligence and average looks. She is a stunner, very clever, very hard working. Without the Head Girl of the UK the RF would be in deep deep shit right now. They owe Carole a deep gratitude.

This is a bit mad would people even do this.

@IDoughnutKnow

There are endless threads on here about cocklodgers and men who loaf around "gaming". Who wants their high-powered-career middle-class daughter to shack up with a cocklodger with an X-Box addiction?

But there’s a huge middle ground between marrying an Xbox addicted weed smoking cocklodger and marrying someone whose family effectively requires you to be publicly silent unless discussing fashion or charity and expunge your opinions and any trace of personality.

'It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife'

Jane Austen ... or Carole Middleton?

While I can imagine Carole Middleton wanting her daughters to 'marry well', I can also imagine that opting for rich and obscure might have been the preferred option given the amount of aggro living in the spotlight can bring. (See recent events.)

I agree. They seem pleasant.

Kate seems rather boring but she's doing the job well, hasn't put a foot wrong, seems to be a decent mum. I don't get the hate.

Of course she didn’t

Also once you're there a lot is outside your control. For my accommodation I applied for mixed sex halls, self catering flats, and single sex halls, in that order. Guess where I ended up? I barely met a single posh person let alone an aristo. This was at a Russell Group university.

Think of the pressure Kate is under. Think of the scrutiny that the Middleton’s have endured. I can’t believe they would engineer that. Their lives are entirely shaped by one of their children’s spouse. Kate could have done what Pippa did and marry a billionaire, that would have been easier.

If she did engineer it (which I don’t think for a minute she did) she must rue the day! The pressure on Kate and those grandchildren is unfathomable.

Anyone who knows the university entry system knows you need to apply, get offers, achieve the grades.. You can’t just see that Prince William is off to St Andrews and blindly follow.

I've just been though the process and starting it again for next child - and your right it's not as simple as change course on some whim.

Agree - and weren't they together for 8 years or so before they got engaged?

Even the most cunning siren couldn't feign interest in someone this long.

Maybe it was engineered that they meet - maybe - but anything further was down to the two of them alone.

They seem well-suited, and happy. And she is a good ambassador for the RF and the country.

I think @TheClogLady and @bellac11 nailed it on page 1.
Surely very few people knew where Wills was going to Uni. Students would not know till he walked in on day 1.

No one is saying Kate feigned interest.

@Janinejones It was all over the news that William was taking a gap year and going to St Andrews instead.

You think Kate’s mum arranged the same university lectures as William?
And stalker? I don’t even understand where you are coming from on that one.

"Woman fancies bloke and successfully pursues him"

How unlikeable.

What would have met with your approval? A Prince waiting until he was thirty, then plucking some simpering virginal English rose from obscurity, then marrying her when she turned twenty? Because that goes well.

"But there certainly are not so many men of large fortune in the world as there are pretty women to deserve them."

Shows how much notice I took at the time. 🤔
Not a subject I usually post on.

St Andrews is a very small place. St Salvator's is an even smaller place. They would undoubtedly have know each other.

@Janinejones I only remember because I joked about divorcing DP and heading off to St Andrews!

I think the Middletons probably tried to give their children opportunity to mix well socially and connect with an elite group in society.
I don't think they can engineer a royal marriage and also find it depressing how much misogyny lies underneath the claims that Carole is the puppet master. It's always the women deemed to be scheming, never fathers.

A John Lewis version of Mrs Bennet.