This is the one-time economics student who fell for a prince after meeting him when she was running a yoghurt factory and is now a princess in one of Europe’s oldest royal houses.

Hande Macht, 31, from an ordinary background in Turkey, came to the Netherlands in 2010 to study.

But she never imagined that nine years later, she would meet a prince as she set up a yoghurt business with her brother.

Prince Alexander, the crown prince of Germany’s Mecklenburg royal clan, joined the company as an investor and fell head over heels for Hande.

The pair, who live in Rotterdam, wed last year, and now Hande is formally Her Highness Hereditary Princess Hande.

But her full title includes Princess of Wenden, Schwerin and Ratzenburg, Lady of the Lands of Rostock and Stargard.

The family traces its ancestry back to before the Norman Conquest with Prince Niklot, Prince of the Obotrites and Lord of Mecklenburg.

Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I formalised the creation of the Duchy of Mecklenburg in 1701 by imperial decree.

Now Hande and Alexander, who was in part educated in Ireland, are forging the next generation after the birth of their son, Duke Leopold, was announced this month.

The couple’s civil marriage took place last year in the Great Hall of the Mirow Palace on 17th June.

Their religious wedding was in the Church of Neustrilitz in September.

In her homeland, Hande is celebrated as the first Turkish duchess, according to Turkish historians, and they are now planning to visit Turkey as a family.

In an interview on the eve of her wedding, she said her ascension to one of Europe’s oldest royal dynasties was the last thing she had ever considered, saying: “I always wanted to be an astronaut. I did not have a dream of being a princess.”