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Reporters accompanying Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to Japan were surprised to learn there would be no official business Wednesday so he and Sophie Grégoire Trudeau could celebrate their eleventh wedding anniversary.

But to anyone who has followed the couple’s story, it is no shock that Trudeau would set aside a full day of his five-day overseas itinerary for some anniversary pampering.

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“I call him my prince, because he treats me like a princess,” Grégoire Trudeau told Maclean’s before their 2005 wedding. “He really went out of his way,” she said of his 2004 proposal made on bended knee. “There were candles and rose petals everywhere. I felt like a princess.”

Trudeau said the decision to take his wife to a luxurious country inn Wednesday — despite the fact their actual anniversary is not until Saturday — reflected his commitment to a healthy marriage.

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“This is the kind of work-life balance that I’ve often talked about as being essential in order to be able to be in service of the country with all one’s very best, and that’s certainly something I’m going to continue to make sure we do,” he told reporters in Tokyo.