Royal Couple Set to Join Prince Harry at Invictus Games in Canada in Surprise Move

Prince Harry won't be the only royal at his upcoming Invictus Games in Canada, as a prince and princess based in the U.S. have relayed their RSVP yes.

According to the Danish royal family's website, Prince Joachim and Princess Marie will attend the Invictus Games Vancouver Whistler 2025 on Friday, Feb. 14 and Saturday, Feb. 15. The detail was revealed in the upcoming schedule of events for the Danish royals.

Prince Joachim, 55, is the younger brother of King Frederik of Denmark, who recently celebrated the first anniversary of his accession to the throne on Jan. 14.

Prince Joachim and Princess Marie, 48, moved to Washington, D.C. in the summer of 2023 for the prince to start a new job at the Danish Embassy under the Ministry of Defense. The couple made the transatlantic move one year after Prince Joachim's mother, Queen Margrethe, stripped his kids of the prince and princess titles they had inherited at birth in a shock step she later described as "necessary future-proofing of the monarchy."

Prince Joachim is a father of four, and shares sons Count Nikolai, 25, and Count Felix, 22, with his first wife Alexandra, Countess of Frederiksborg, and younger children Count Henrik, 16, and Countess Athena, 13, with his wife Princess Marie.

Queen Margrethe announced the move to remove her grandchildren's titles in September 2022 in a change made effective on Jan. 1, 2023, and announced that December that she would abdicate in January 2024. 

Related: Meet Denmark's Royals: Your Guide to the Danish Monarchy's Family Tree

Queen Margrethe later apologized for the fallout around the decision to remove Joachim's children's titles (as Joachim said he and Marie received just five days' notice of the huge move) but stuck to her "difficult" commitment.

The Queen said it had been a "long time coming" and emphasized that her children, daughters-in-law and grandchildren were "my great joy and pride." (While Prince Joachim's kids lost their prince or princess titles and HRH styling in the shift, and now go by their Count or Countess of Monpezat titles from their late grandfather Prince Henrik's side of the family, Queen Margrethe's move didn't affect the four children of King Frederik and his wife, Queen Mary, who are still princes and princesses.)

Prince Joachim, Princess Marie, Henrik and Athena are now based in Washington, D.C., and travel back to Denmark for banner events like the heir to the throne Crown Prince Christian's 18th birthday bash. Joachim attended the accession celebrations for his brother Frederik solo, and told The Washington Post in an interview last spring that "We’ve moved on" from the title strip shock.

"We weren’t happy about the way it happened," Princess Marie said in the joint interview with her husband. "But it’s a family thing. It’s complicated."

Prince Joachim and Princess Marie's upcoming trip to Canada will be a reunion for him and Prince Harry. The Duke of Sussex, 40, a former captain in the British Army, created the Invictus Games, an international adaptive sports tournament for as an for wounded, injured and sick service personnel and veterans as a means for healing, in 2014, and has organized the seventh cycle in Vancouver and Whistler, Canada from Feb. 8 to Feb. 16.

Prince Joachim and Prince Harry previously met in Copenhagen in October 2017 during a visit with Danish Invictus Games participants during Harry's official visit to Denmark that fall.

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There, they watched a training session and chatted with athletes has a reception after.

Denmark joined the Invictus movement in 2014, the inception of the competition, with a focus on healing the mental health of service members, the team's website says.

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