Princess for a Year: Norway's Party Girl

Aug. 23 -- Dear Fairy Godmother,

Help! I liked riding in the pumpkin coach, but the paparazzi are just too much. As for royal duties, I'd rather be back cleaning up after my wicked stepmother and stepsisters. Is it too late to smash that glass slipper?

— Cinderella

In the past two decades, the world has watched while three commoners married British royal princes — and found that the fairy tale came with more than a few pitfalls.

Princess Diana's unhappy marriage rocked the monarchy, Sarah Ferguson ended up splashed across the tabloids with her toe in a Texan's mouth, and Sophie Rhys-Jones ran afoul of some tabloid trickery following her marriage to Prince Edward.

But there is one commoner-turned-royal who seems to be getting it right.

Crown Princess Mette-Marit, 29, has made it through her first year of marriage to the heir to Norway's throne without any major gaffes or glitches.

"I think in most people's eyes she has done quite a good job," said Liv Berit Tessem, who covers the royals for the Aftenposten, Norway's leading broadsheet newspaper.

From Single Mom to Royal Princess

When she married Crown Prince Haakon in Oslo Cathedral on Aug. 25, 2001, Mette-Marit Tjessem Høiby didn't seem like the most obvious candidate for future queen.

She was a commoner who had worked as a waitress and was part of Oslo's wild "house party" circle. She also was an unwed mother, with a young son from a previous relationship with a convicted drug dealer.

One year later, none of that seems to matter much to her future subjects.

"Since the marriage she has completed all her official assignments to most Norwegians' liking," said Håkon Kavli, a political scientist for the MMI Institute in Norway, in an e-mail to ABCNEWS.com.

Kavli said the institute's polling showed more than one in three Norwegians think the crown princess is a good role model for the young, "while only one out of 10 think she's a bad role model."

"This is a good result for her, considering all the debate in the Norwegian media on her being a single mother before meeting the crown prince," he said.