A future princess yet to fully define herself

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She's Waity Katie no more. Kate Middleton is now on the road to becoming Queen Catherine.

After Prince William announced the couple's engagement at St. James Palace Tuesday, the willowy brunette told reporters that joining the Royal Family was a "daunting prospect." She added: "Hopefully I'll take it in my stride."

By all accounts, the 28-year-old has the confidence to pull it off. She may have even been preparing herself for this moment since high school, becoming the first true commoner to marry into the family since Anne Hyde, who wed the Duke of York, later James II, in 1660.

The woman who will star in the biggest royal wedding spectacle since Prince Charles and Lady Diana is discreet, plucky and though a commoner, perhaps more inured to the perils of royal life than some born into it. Still, like the early Diana, she has yet to fully define herself. Her working résumé is thin and she has yet to make any major public works projects of her own.

Catherine Elizabeth Middleton was born in January of 1982, in Berkshire, England, to parents Carole and Michael Middleton, a former flight attendant and dispatcher, respectively, who now run a successful mail-order kids party products company called Party Pieces. She has two younger siblings, Pippa and James. The family lives in the town of Bucklebury.

According to a 2008 Vanity Fair profile, when Ms. Middleton was 11, her parents sent her to an all-girls school, Downe House, in Berkshire, where she was bullied. They moved her to a boarding school, Marlborough, in Wiltshire - which is also the alma mater of the Duke and Duchess of York's daughter, Princess Eugenie.

"Kate," as she became known at boarding school, excelled at hockey and tennis. Former classmate Charlie Leslie told Vanity Fair the future princess was level-headed and down-to-earth. "Kate is an absolutely phenomenal girl - really popular, talented, creative and sporty."

One college master chimed in: "You might imagine someone like her would attract a degree of jealousy and bitchiness from other students. Not so. She was universally liked and to top it all she was a joy to teach. Quite sickening, really."

The raciest moment? Apparently she used to regularly moon the boys' residence from her dorm window.

After a "gap" year off, she started attending the University of St. Andrews in Scotland in 2001, where she met her future fiancé while both were studying art history.

Many observers mark this moment as not completely random. According to reports, Ms. Middleton's boarding school dorm room featured a poster of the young Prince as decor. There was even a rumour - firmly denied - that her mother nudged her toward St. Andrews after learning the Prince was planning to study there.

Ms. Middleton is said to have nabbed his full attention during a charity fashion show in which she wore lingerie under a see-through dress in 2002.

Their romance is widely believed to have commenced by 2003, with the first public proof in photographs taken of the pair on a ski trip together at the Swiss resort Klosters in March of 2004. During their time together she has worked as a buyer for the Brit chain Jigsaw and with her parents' company.

Ms. Middleton appears to be a shrewd operator who sees her role as deflecting negative attention from the monarchy. There are reports of her telling Prince William and his friends to be more cautious about their behaviour while they were all on holiday in Ibiza, in case the paparazzi were lurking nearby. And while she has been photographed clubbing with Prince William and his socialite friends, she's become known for staying sober and never appearing worse-for-wear.

So, it's not surprising that when a friend commented on her luck in dating Prince William, she is said to have retorted, "He's lucky to be going out with me!" This is in stark contrast to the late Princess Diana, who, during her courtship with Prince Charles said: "If I am lucky enough to be the Princess of Wales…."

When the couple split briefly in 2007, Ms. Middleton was labelled "Waity Katie" by the media. But she was no doormat. Katie Nicholl, a columnist for the Mail on Sunday newspaper told Vanity Fair that Ms. Middleton played her hand brilliantly. She was photographed on the nightclub circuit while the Prince was stuck back in his army barracks.

"She knew that by giving him time and space she could probably get him back, and she did so by being very clever, stepping out at his favourite clubs, looking glamorous and fabulous, and making him realize ... that's the only thing," she said. It's the kind of manoeuvre it would take Princess Diana, nine years younger when she became engaged, years to perfect.

After they reunited, Ms. Middleton reportedly asked people to call her "Catherine" - which the media quickly pointed out sounded more regal. But it hasn't stuck.

What's more, the more informal "Kate" slapped across headlines this week may better represent the thrill many royal watchers are experiencing watching a commoner storm the gates.

Against a backdrop of a royal family that doesn't do marriage particularly well, Britons - and, observers say, monarchists around the globe - are willing to take a leap of faith along with the bride-to-be.

"Isn't it the fantasy that anyone can become a princess?" says Ciara Hunt, the former editor of Hello! magazine's Canadian edition. "And Kate has done that."

That she is wearing Princess Diana's engagement ring will no doubt warm hearts. As Ms. Hunt sees it, the world is ready for another "people's princess."

If nothing else, the ascension of Ms. Middleton to within spitting distance of the throne will win her fans for another, more quotidian reason: they may score a "bank holiday" to mark the occasion, as they did when Prince Charles and Lady Diana wed.

With a report from Amy Verner