It’s official! James Middleton confirmed his engagement to girlfriend Alizee Thevenet with a sweet Instagram post on Sunday, October 6.
In the photo, Thevenet, 29, leans into Middleton, 32, while showing off her sapphire engagement ring.
“She said OUI,” Duchess Kate and Pippa Middleton‘s younger brother captioned the photo. “Our secret is out but we couldn’t be happier to share the news.”
James led up to the big announcement on his Instagram Story. He shared a photo of the happy couple swimming together. “I asked @alizeethevenet a question the other day…” the British entrepreneur wrote. James followed up that post with another picture of the pair captioned, “And she said…” The last photo confirmed their engagement with Thevenet’s ring.
The pair first connected through their mutual love of dogs. Thevenet met James when she stopped to pet his spaniel therapy dog, Ella, at the South Kensington Club in 2018. The couple have since been spotted with Pippa, 36, and her husband, James Matthews, on vacation in St. Barts in January. Last December, they attended the Henry van Straubenzee Memorial Fund’s Christmas Carol Service in London.
Earlier this year, Thevenet met the royal family at the wedding of Lady Gabriella Windsor, the daughter of Prince and Princess Michael of Kent, in Windsor. In July, the busy couple also attended Wimbledon.
James hasn’t been too public with his relationship but he did post a photo of himself and Thevenet enjoying a day out on a boat in May.
“Sail away with me,” he captioned the photo.
No details have been released on which royal family members will participate in the ceremony. James did give a reading at the Duchess of Cambridge, 37, and Prince William‘s wedding in 2011, which could hint at Kate returning the favor.
In an op-ed for the Daily Mail in January, James opened up about his mental health struggles and how his family has encouraged him to overcome them.
“I feel compelled to talk about it openly because this is precisely what my brother-in-law Prince William, my sister Catherine and Prince Harry are advocating through their mental health charity Heads Together,” he wrote. “They believe we can only tackle the stigma associated with mental illness if we have the courage to change the national conversation, to expel its negative associations. So it wouldn’t be honest to suppress my story. I want to speak out, and they are my motivation for doing so.”
