The Crown Stills That Will Make You Fall For William & Kate's College Love Story All Over Again

Princess Diana is the focus of the first four episodes of Season 6 of Netflix's "The Crown," and considering Diana's tragic death in a car accident in Paris, it was a pretty intense set of episodes. However, the second set of six episodes — set to debut on Netflix on December 14, 2023 — should be a bit on the lighter side since they are going to include the beginnings of the love story between William, Prince of Wales and Catherine, Princess of Wales.

Stills from the set of "The Crown" have given us a look at how the show will portray the young couple, and we're excited to see the start of their love story at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. Yes, we know "The Crown" is dramatized from real life, and there are parts that are made up. But from some of our favorite pics from Netflix of the couple — Meg Bellamy plays Kate Middleton and Ed McVey plays Prince William — "The Crown" is definitely serving delightful early 2000s vibes and the sweet reminder that the now married parents of three were once just two young adults falling in love.

Prince William and Kate Middleton first met at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland in 2001, but it was at a charity fashion show in March 2002 that Kate reportedly really caught the prince's attention. If you see the outfit she wore, you'll understand why. She was wearing a sheer dress over what looks like a black bra and underwear with her long hair curly and loose, and "The Crown" includes this famous moment from William and Kate's relationship.

On "The Crown's" Instagram page, they posted an interview with Meg Bellamy about what it was like to recreate that now-iconic fashion show scene. "At first I was a bit apprehensive," Bellamy said, "purely because it was the first time [...] reliving a key event that I remembered." When it came to actually filming it, she called the scene, "liberating" and "so great for the self-esteem."

The real-life dress designer Charlotte Todd created the dress for a university assignment fittingly called "The Art of Seduction," according to People. The dress, originally designed to be a skirt, was later sold at auction for $125,000. We don't know who put Kate in the dress — whether someone else chose it for her to wear and it just happened to catch William's eye or if it was perhaps more calculated by Kate. We like to think it was just a lucky chance.

When William, Prince of Wales and Catherine, Princess of Wales were asked about their first meeting in their engagement interview with ITV, William said, "We were friends for over a year first, and it just sort of blossomed from then on."

We have some hints from "The Crown" stills of where exactly that friendship turned romance may have started. There's a shot of Kate, played by Meg Bellamy, looking across a classroom table at William, played by Ed McVey. We know they were at the University of St. Andrews as art history majors in 2001, though William would later switch to geography. Having classes together would certainly have allowed them to meet and develop a relationship, plus sharing in class discussions could have given each other some insight into what the other felt and thought about the world.

They also lived in the same residence hall — St Salvator's Hall — and Laura Warshaeuer, a student who lived in the same dorm with them, told People that, "Whenever Kate was in the room, Will was obviously paying attention to her. [...] the two of them would be talking, it was amazing to see how natural it was, how they had so much to say to each other."

Another picture from the set of "The Crown" features the actors playing Kate Middleton and Prince William gazing meaningfully at each other at an event. As Kate, Meg Bellamy has her hair up and is wearing a one-shoulder gown while Ed McVey, as William, is wearing a suit coat. It's a similar-looking outfit to what William was pictured wearing in real life to an event at the University of St. Andrews in 2004 where he and Kate were pictured happily dancing together. 

While we don't know exactly what event the picture from "The Crown" portrays, since Kate's outfit isn't the same as the 2004 dance, we like to think that it is a foreshadowing of Kate's one-shoulder style choices as a princess — she's wearing a blue one-shoulder gown for her surprise Eurovision appearance, a red version for one of her official 40th birthday photos, and a white one-shoulder gown has been her dress of choice for the BAFTAs more than once.

The two actors are also showing the same chemistry in that moment that we've seen during the Prince and Princess of Wales's rare moments of PDA and in how they look at each other. With these stills as the teaser, we can't wait to see William and Kate fall in love on-screen, even if it's a fictionalized version.