Your post basically squares with my posts on the subject. It's not easy to dive right into the royal marriage market, when others regard you with skepticism, even if you're a legally enthroned house and technically their *equals*. As such, the Bernadottes could only gradually dip their toes into the pool. They were lucky to find a princess of Leuchtenberg (as you say, a noblewoman with royal roots).

That house never reigned, but the Beauharnais family (let's not forget also Stephanie, who married the grand duke of Baden) were regarded as royals by virtue of Napoleon's patronage of them. How else could the king of Bavaria (to whom he was an ally) hold his stepson in such high regard, so as to approve a marriage with one of his daughters?

In the next generation, of course, the Bernadottes were able to make fully royal marriages (thanks to Josephine's royal ancestry) -- including a princess of the Netherlands. That's why I find it surprising that Queen Wilhelmina later on initially tried to uphold the highest marital standard possible. It has been said that she herself wouldn't have anything to do with a family which was not an old and reigning one. No mediatized, deposed, or parvenu house would do for her. As it was, her husband was Duke Henry of Mecklenburg-Schwerin.

She strived to maintain the same standard for her own daughter, Juliana -- but struggled: hardly any eligible royal prince was crazy about marrying her. According to an urban legend, a palace secretary advised Queen Wilhelmina that "beggars can't be choosers", and advised Her Majesty to rethink the requirement of "being a member of an old and reigning house", as an acceptable husband for her heir.

After all, the Great War (as World War I was known) had toppled a number of thrones: just about all the European dynasties, both reigning and non-reigning, had no choice but to begin lowering their marital standards. The Netherlands was no exception -- especially since hardly anybody was crazy about being a prince consort, especially to the plain and dowdy Juliana.

It has been said that Prince Carl of Sweden (namesake son of Prince Carl of Sweden and Princess Ingeborg of Denmark) would have been the best bet, highly favored by Wilhelmina. But by then, the Bernadottes had become a respected royal family, for the queen to overcome any objections she may have harbored earlier in life.

In the end, there is nothing like retaining a reigning status, to raise the stock of a house: look at Monaco and Liechtenstein, as perfect examples. Unfortunately in this case, the meeting between the Swedish prince and the Dutch heiress (at the 1934 wedding of the Duke of Kent and Princess Marine of Greece and Denmark) didn't go too well ...