Princess Charlotte, the second child and only daughter of Prince William and Kate Middleton, turns 11 today. To celebrate their daughter’s birthday, the Prince and Princess of Wales shared a new picture of her to their social media accounts.
Like Prince Louis’s 8th birthday photo, it was taken by Matt Porteous during a Wales family holiday to Cornwall in April.
Three hours later, they posted a series of clips of Charlotte with the family’s dogs and playing on the beach:
It’s been a big week for new Wales family photos: Just yesterday, the Wales family celebrated the first birthday of their new dog, Otto, who came from a litter of their dog Orla’s puppies, with a new snap of the dog, and on Wednesday, they shared a photograph to mark Kate and William’s 15th wedding anniversary. (Like the birthday portraits of Prince Louis and Princess Charlotte, the family photo was also taken by Porteous in Cornwall.)
Historically, the family has debuted a new photo of the children ahead of their birthdays, sharing the image early with press under embargo, so as to publish in newspapers on the day of the birthday. However, starting with Prince Louis’s sixth birthday in 2024, the Waleses released a photograph directly on their own social media. As T&C’s Victoria Murphy noted at the time, the change in strategy came following an edited image released by Kensington Palace for Mother’s Day, and in the wake of Kate sharing her cancer diagnosis. The straight-to-social-media strategy has continued since.
Prince Charlotte has appeared in public just once this year, joining her brothers and parents on Easter Sunday.
