Alecko Papamarkou played matchmaker for the royal couple! Thanks to him, Crown Princess Marie-Chantal and Crown Prince Pavlos of Greece met at a 1992 birthday party in New Orleans.
“Alecko arranged to take me as his companion,” Marie-Chantal told Vanity Fair in 2008. “I didn’t want to go. I knew it was a big matchup, because Alecko had been telling me for weeks that he knew the perfect person for me. And I didn’t feel comfortable being set up. I tried to get out of it, but Alecko never returned my phone calls and we had arranged to meet at the airport. So I ended up going. I borrowed a navy-blue Chanel couture suit from my mother and looked like a million bucks.”
Pavlos revealed that Alecko managed to have them sit next to each other at dinner. “And we clicked. It was love at first sight. I knew that he was the person I would marry,” Marie-Chantal said.
Pavlos added, “I was completely taken. I’m not the kind of person who had girlfriends and then had little affairs on the side. I always had a girlfriend and moved on and went to another one. But the moment I saw Marie-Chantal, I said, Well, this is what I’ve been looking for. Alecko was right.”