So when his father, Prince Charles, and his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, make the official announcement, perhaps next month, that William, soon to be 28, and his girlfriend of nine years, Kate Middleton (28), are engaged, most everyone in the United Kingdom can be forgiven for reacting: "What took you so long? Get on with it!".
After just enduring a ground-shattering election with murky results and prolonged political disarray, the Brits are understandably eager to cheer about something, and nothing is better than a royal wedding - especially as it involves their future king, one of the beloved sons of beloved Diana.
Besides, years from now no-one will remember or care about the election, says historian Eleanor Herman, author of Sex With Kings, about sex scandals involving royals.
"Can you remember the details of elections from the early 1980s? No? But I bet you can remember the 1981 royal wedding" of Charles and Diana, she says. Because "we care about fairy tales and frothy weddings with princesses we can dress up".
William and Kate, the middle-class daughter of a former pilot and former flight attendant who operate an online party-supply company, met in 2001 at the University of St Andrews in Scotland. They have been together, more or less continuously, since then, even living together. So, after years of dating and waiting, why the surge in speculation about their future now?
The immediate reason is the apparently well-informed speculation by The Daily Beast's Tina Brown, the famous ex-Vanity Fair and ex-New Yorker editor and best-selling biographer of Diana who is known to have excellent sources in Buckingham Palace.
In a column last month headlined "A Date for William and Kate", Brown predicted an engagement announcement was imminent, perhaps as early as June 3 or June 4.
That set off feverish conjecture by the always febrile British tabloids ("She'll wear Diana's tiara!" The Daily Mail crowed), tut-tut denials from the palace, and excited wagering among British punters, to the point that one bookie had to stop taking bets.
Oh, and the Americans went all wobbly, too. People magazine put the couple on its cover last month under the headline "The Next Princess!". Inside, the magazine reported that William was overheard calling her father "Dad" while they were all on a ski holiday in the French Alps in March.
"From our readers' perspective, they've been reading about [affairs of Tiger] Woods and [Sandra Bullock's cheating husband] Jesse James, and now they really want to read about something nice, uplifting and inspiring," says Nancy Jeffrey, senior editor in charge of royals coverage for People.
"There's a fairy-tale quality to this - she's going to become a princess - and we Americans like our fairy tales, too."
Recently, Tara Palmer-Tomkinson, hard-partying socialite and friend of the royal family (who once flashed her breasts at William), was quoted as saying there will be a "long wait" until the engagement.
But Robert Lacey, also a royals biographer with good palace sources, is so convinced Brown is right, he's setting aside those dates in his diary.
"We have to treat [Brown] as having great credibility," he says.
Brown reported that those two days in June are "mysteriously blocked out" on the Queen's calendar, suggesting they have been set aside to make the engagement announcement, with a wedding to follow in November, possibly at Windsor Castle in St George's Chapel, where Charles and his second wife, longtime mistress Camilla Parker Bowles, were married in April 2005. (No matter what either might wish, British law and custom require that a future king must marry in England - not, say, in Scotland - cannot elope and cannot marry a Catholic.)
It seems likely that Will and Kate's wedding will not be the spectacular wedding of the century, as William's parents' nuptials were in 1981, when all of Britain's great and good packed St Paul's Cathedral in London and 750 million people watched the televised ceremony.
"The feeling is that was over the top," Lacey says, "that it was an unfortunate precedent, and the superstitious could say it jinxed the marriage that followed".
Almost certainly, however, Will and Kate's nuptials will be more elaborate than Charles' and Camilla's unprecedented low-key wedding, which involved quick "I dos" in a civil ceremony at the Windsor Town Hall, followed by a Church of England blessing service in cosy St George's Chapel.
"It's entirely possible it will be a much smaller affair, which is not to say it won't be royal," says People's Jeffrey. "The times are completely different [from 1981], and they are well aware of that. But the public expects a certain amount of pomp and ceremony."
Brown's predictions were instantly dismissed by the palace, but they would be, wouldn't they? Lacey says. "They'll be denying it until the minute before they announce it," he says dryly.
Nevertheless, there are good arguments for why an engagement and wedding are more likely to be sooner than later, say Brown and Lacey.
In June 2011, William's grandfather, Prince Philip, will be 90, and in 2012, the Queen will celebrate her diamond jubilee - 60 years on the throne - in February. Not to mention, the summer Olympics will be in London in 2012.
"The Queen is very cost-conscious these days, and she may feel that three big royal celebrations in a row in three years - wedding, birthday and diamond jubilee in 2012 - will excite press flak for overspending," Brown wrote.
William, who's in the Royal Air Force, is in training in Wales to be a helicopter pilot, and Kate has spent a lot of time with him lately in his rented house in northwest Wales. Training "has meant a good deal to him, and it may be that nothing will happen until he's finished", Lacey says.
Another factor is that William, at age 22, once told a reporter he didn't want to marry until he was at least 28. His birthday is June 21. His mother had just turned 20 when she married Charles; she was 12 years his junior.
"[Kate] is 28, not 20 - those eight years count for a lot," Herman says.
Will and Kate have other advantages over his parents, she says. They met at college like other young couples, rather than being hastily brought together in a semi-arranged royal marriage.
Instead of a few months, they have had nearly a decade to get to know each other, with all the ups and downs of a real relationship, including a breakup of several months during which they remained friends. She has even held a job, although her ability to work is limited by the constant presence of paparazzi.
"She is not an empty, wailing victim hoping a prince will solve all her problems," Herman says. "She will not have been chosen because of her virginity. She will have been chosen for her heart, intelligence, kindness and sense of humour, and the things she has in common with the groom."
In fact, Kate has shown grace under pressure while she waits (some tabloids mock her as "Waity Katie") for her wedding ring. The constant presence of the paparazzi and the need for appropriate and discreet behaviour at all times have made it difficult to live a normal life.
So far, she has not put a foot wrong (which is more than future brother-in-law and trouble-prone Prince Harry can say). Mostly, she helps with her parents' business, and lately has been getting more involved with charitable work, always a safe royal pursuit.
"There is no anti-Kate opposition party because she's not done anything that anyone can disagree with yet, but there's no sign of Lady Di fever, either," Lacey says.
"As we learned so painfully from Diana and Charles, the problem with fairy tales is that they often turn into nightmares," Herman says. "What I hope for William and Kate is the kind of real marriage and real life that most people have.
"And, yes, photos of the bride in glorious clothes."
