Mette-Marit and Haakon of Norway celebrate this August 25th 25 years of marriage. That wedding changed the life of the current crown princess, but in Spain it left another image for history: Felipe de Borbón, then prince of Asturias, appeared publicly alongside Eva Sannum at the event that was closest to turning the Norwegian model into a possible future princess of Asturias. Four months later, the relationship had ended.
The setting was Oslo. On August 25, 2001, Haakon Magnus of Norway married Mette-Marit Tjessem Høiby at the cathedral of the capital in front of representatives of the main European royal families. The bride arrived at the altar after months of controversy over her past, for being a single mother and for a biography very far from what was traditionally expected of the wife of an heir.
Twenty-five years later, Haakon and Mette-Marit are still married and she is set to become queen consort when Harald V's reign ends. The Norwegian Royal House has remembered this Tuesday their silver wedding anniversary with a new photograph of the couple and has explained that the anniversary will be celebrated privately and with family.
But that wedding had a second story in Spain.
All Spanish attention was on Eva Sannum
Felipe de Borbón was then 33 years old and his love life had long been a matter of public interest due to his status as heir. Since the late nineties, he had been linked to Eva Sannum, a Norwegian model six years younger than him.
The relationship was known, but Zarzuela had never made an official presentation of Sannum as the prince's partner. There was also no announced marital commitment.
The wedding of Haakon and Mette-Marit changed the public dimension of the courtship.
The presence of Eva Sannum among the guests turned Oslo into a meeting point for dozens of Spanish journalists. The question was no longer just whether there was a relationship between the two, but whether their joint attendance at a royal wedding could anticipate the next step of the Spanish heir.
The expectation had another explanation. Felipe and Eva had precisely begun a relationship in Norway that had already lasted several years.
They had met in Oslo
Felipe and Eva Sannum met in 1997 in Oslo, during the celebrations for King Harald's 60th birthday. The prince was 29 years old and she was beginning to develop her professional career as a model.
The relationship continued later between Norway and Spain. Sannum spent time in Madrid and studied Spanish, while both tried to keep their private life away from the cameras.
They didn't always succeed.
The photographs taken during a private trip to India ended up visually confirming a relationship that had been occupying space in the press for some time. However, they were images obtained during their private life. What had not yet happened was that Felipe and Eva appeared together voluntarily at a major institutional event.
That is what made the 2001 wedding a different moment.
Felipe with Queen Sofía; Eva Sannum separately
They did not arrive together at the cathedral.
The Prince of Asturias attended the ceremony accompanied by Queen Sofía, while Eva Sannum arrived alone. Felipe was wearing a gala military uniform; she chose a long turquoise blue dress that would end up appearing in a good part of the European press the next day.
They also did not share a table during dinner. The organization distributed the guests among different spaces and Sannum did not occupy a place next to the Spanish heir.
The image the photographers were looking for came later.
During the reception and the dance after the wedding, Felipe and Eva appeared together before the cameras. There was no announcement, no statement from Zarzuela, nor declaration about a future marriage. But the photograph had a meaning that was hard to ignore: for the first time, the Spanish heir and the woman with whom he was in a relationship were seen together at a public event of such magnitude.
The Spanish press interpreted that night as the public confirmation of the courtship.
Mette-Marit and Eva Sannum, two parallel debates
The choice of the setting made another comparison inevitable.
Mette-Marit was marrying that day the heir of Norway after having endured intense scrutiny over her past. She did not belong to royalty, was the mother of a child from a previous relationship, and had frequented environments linked to drug use during her youth, circumstances she ended up publicly addressing before the wedding.
Haakon did not give up on marrying her.
The union was then interpreted as another sign of the change that European monarchies were experiencing: heirs were beginning to choose partners outside traditional aristocratic circles.
In Spain, the presence of Eva Sannum raised a similar discussion, although with very different circumstances.
Sannum also did not belong to the aristocracy. She was a model and had starred in advertising work, including underwear campaigns that were repeatedly brought back by the press when she began to be talked about as a possible wife of the prince.
The debate did not affect Felipe's constitutional rights to marry her except in the cases provided for in the Constitution, but it did affect the social and institutional acceptance of someone who could end up becoming the Princess of Asturias and, eventually, the Queen consort of Spain.
While Norway celebrated the marriage of Haakon to a woman whose profile had provoked strong resistance, Spain watched Felipe alongside another woman outside the royalty wondering if something similar could happen.
A photograph that seemed to lead to a wedding
After Oslo, speculation about a possible engagement increased.
Felipe was 33 years old. Eva had been in his life for several years. Her appearance at a wedding of the Norwegian royal family had provided the relationship with a visibility that until then both had avoided.
But the announcement never came.
The pressure on Sannum increased during the following months. Her profession, her past as a model, and her ability to adapt to the demands of the Crown were constantly analyzed.
And then came an outcome that turned the photograph from Oslo into the climax, and not the beginning, of the couple's public exposure.
Four months later, Felipe announced the breakup
On December 14, 2001, less than four months after the Norwegian wedding, Felipe publicly confirmed the end of his relationship with Eva Sannum.
He did so in front of journalists after an official event. He explained that both had mutually agreed to end their relationship and asked for respect for her.
The possible future Princess of Asturias thus disappeared from the succession equation practically in the same year she had first appeared publicly alongside the heir.
Eva returned to Norway and ended up leaving modeling to develop a professional career linked to advertising and communication. Felipe remained officially single for almost two more years.
The next announcement was completely different.
Then Letizia came
On November 1, 2003, the Royal House announced the engagement of Prince Felipe to Letizia Ortiz Rocasolano, a journalist from Televisión Española.
The surprise was enormous because the relationship had been kept practically secret.
Felipe and Letizia married on May 22, 2004 in the Almudena Cathedral in Madrid. Ten years later, after the abdication of Juan Carlos I, they became Kings of Spain.
The story of Eva Sannum has since remained one of the great "what if..." scenarios in the sentimental biography of the current monarch, although there was never an official marriage commitment.
Mette-Marit did walk the path to the end
The comparison takes on a different perspective today.
Mette-Marit is celebrating 25 years married to Haakon. The woman whose suitability to enter the Norwegian royal family generated enormous discussion in 2001 is now one institutional step away from becoming queen consort.
However, she is not going through an easy moment. Her lung disease has drastically reduced her activity, and this year she has had to undergo a transplant. This has been compounded by revelations about her former relationship with Jeffrey Epstein and the legal proceedings of her eldest son, Marius Borg Høiby, who does not belong to the Royal House.
The succession also no longer seems a remote issue. Harald V is 89 years old and is hospitalized again, while Haakon is temporarily serving as regent.
The couple has reached their silver wedding anniversary united. The Norwegian Royal House has released a new photograph of both on Tuesday, and the planned public celebration will have to wait due to Mette-Marit’s medical recovery.
The photo that left another story within that wedding
The image of Felipe and Eva Sannum now allows us to reconstruct two trajectories that that night seemed to be moving in a similar direction.
Mette-Marit entered the Oslo Cathedral surrounded by doubts about whether she fit into a royal family, and 25 years later she is still alongside the heir and is set to become queen consort of Norway.
Eva Sannum appeared that same night alongside Prince Felipe in a photograph that sparked wedding expectations. Before the end of 2001, the relationship had ended.
Felipe would still take two more years to introduce the woman he would finally marry.
For that reason, the anniversary of Haakon and Mette-Marit also preserves a small page of the recent history of the Spanish Crown. The same August 25, 2001, on which Norway watched as a woman outside the royalty married its future king, Spain saw for the first time its own alongside the woman who then seemed able to occupy that same place.