"Society took time to accept the new Crown Prince and Princess, but love would win in the end," the producers said, adding: "Harald and Sonja has all the ingredients to become a major international viewer favorite for anyone who likes unique and genuine love stories".
This brave ultimatum was a key to the couple's success - although it still took King Olav three more years to give the couple permission to marry - and Harald has reportedly said that patience was key to finally marrying the woman he loved, "We just kept waiting and hoping they'd all finally back down," he explained to People magazine.
Inside forbidden love story that threatened to destroy the Norwegian monarchy King Harald of Norway has been married to his wife Queen Sonja for an impressive 57 years - but when the couple first met, their romance was completely "forbidden".
He told his father that if he was not allowed to marry the woman he loved, he would refuse to marry altogether, which would mean the entire line of succession would have been put into jeopardy, and would have caused huge amounts of uncertainty to the monarchy itself.
Harald, then Crown Prince of Norway, was supposed to marry someone from the same kind of high rank he had been born into, but when he met 'commoner' Sonja by chance at a dinner party, it was nothing less than "love at first sight".
