Harald and Sonja lost faith several times during their long wait for approval to wed.
"There were periods when we lost hope that we would get King Olav's consent for our marriage, and we saw no other way but to break off our relationship. We tried that a few times. But we found our way back again," Queen Sonja says in Per Egil Hegge's official biography of King Harald, "Harald V".
The couple waited nine years for King Olav's approval.
"The wait was certainly too long, and I think it was worse for Sonja than for me. But perhaps Norway needed such a long time. My father said the whole time that 'Norwegians are not ready for - this'," King Harald remembered.
King Olav feared that the marriage would not be accepted. He never spoke with Sonja before the engagement, the process had to be completely correct, King Harald said.
By contrast, the way unmarried mother and Crown Princess-to-be Mette-Marit was received was far more modern. She was invited to talk about herself in detail, and was open about her self-confessed 'debauched' youth.
"Is there anything more now," King Harald wondered.
The king admits in his biography that he too had doubts about how the public would receive the news of a marriage between Crown Prince Haakon and a young woman with such an untraditional past.
On Mette-Marit's "second or third" visit to the palace she asked to tell everything about herself, so that the king and queen knew what to expect. When she was completely finished, Harald said "We can manage that".
He was eager that his son should not suffer a long wait, and King Harald also discussed the matter with then Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, who he characterized as "very understanding".
"I knew well that this was a controversial matter. Those who say it was much simpler in 1968 than when Crown Prince Haakon married in 2001, don't have much historical memory. It was anything but simple," King Harald said.
