Her own background should have helped prepare her for the formidable challenge.
The Middleton clan is blessed with strong ties and commercial savvy. Kate's parents, Michael and Carole, went from airline employees to owners of a successful small business who gained their children access to Britain's loftiest social circles.
Michael Middleton was a flight dispatcher and Carole Goldsmith a flight attendant before they married and, in the 1980s, set up Party Pieces, a business selling balloons, candles, streamers and other mail-order party supplies.
They did well enough to move from a semidetached suburban house to a large home in the affluent village of Bucklebury, with children Kate, now 29, Pippa - now 27 and her sister's maid of honor - and James, 24. Neighbors speak well of them and guard the family's privacy. Resident Brian Ward remembered Middleton as "a very ordinary girl" who would often pop into the local pub.
Image: Kate Middleton, girlfriend of Britain's Prince William, arrives at the Sovereign's Parade at The Royal Military Academy in Camberley, west of London, 15 December 2006.
Text & Images: AP
