Inside the Secret Plans for Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's Bachelor and Bachelorette Parties

With the royal wedding just weeks away, planning for the year’s most eagerly anticipated event is well under way and that includes plans for Prince Harry’s bachelor party and Meghan Markle’s hen weekend.

While details of both are being kept tightly under wraps, Vanity Fair understands that Markle has asked her close friend Markus Anderson to oversee her bachelorette party while Harry has put his brother, Prince William, and his best friend Tom Inskip in charge of his all-important sending-off party.

Just last week Inskip, known as “Skippy” to friends, was spotted doing reconnaissance on a suitably swanky boutique hotel in Mexico which has been earmarked as a possible stag party venue.

“Tom is in charge of finding the location. It has to be somewhere they won’t be found and a place they can completely take over. Tom was checking out this fabulous place in Mexico last week and he loved it,” reports a friend. “It might be a step too far for everyone to go to Mexico but it’s one of the places on the wish list.”

With party-loving Skippy at the helm, Harry has wisely asked his more sensible older brother Prince William to make sure that his bachelor party plans don’t get out of hand.

Since meeting Markle, Harry, once the wild child of the royal family, has settled down. Says a friend: “Harry is a lot tamer and less of a party boy these days. Meghan has really calmed him down. He smokes less, although Meghan hasn’t yet managed to get him to quit smoking, and he doesn’t drink as much. He’s determined that there will be no repeats of Vegas on this stag do.”

Meanwhile Markus, who engineered one of Harry and Markle’s first dates at Soho House in London in the summer of 2016, is spending every spare moment planning Meghan’s hen.

“It is going to be fabulous, glamorous, and very exclusive,” says a source close to Anderson. “Marcus knows some wonderful venues, saying that, I bet he’ll keep it simple and close to home.”

Soho House played such a prominent part in the the couple’s early courtship. Harry first met Markle at 76 Dean Street and they spent several weekends at Soho Farmhouse in Oxfordshire. Perhaps Babington House, which can be taken over for private hire, might be a fitting venue?

Meanwhile, Markle has been busily overseeing the more intricate details of the wedding day. From the elderflower-and-lemon cake which she has commissioned from Violet Cakes in East London to her dress (a state secret), Markle has been hands-on and according to a source, has a “very clear idea of what she wants on her wedding day.”

Markle, who is learning to drive on the left, and Harry, have been zooming up the motorway between London and Windsor for weekly planning meetings. According to one courtier, Markle was with Queen Elizabeth just weeks ago to discuss what flower arrangements she wants.

“She is very hands-on with everything,” says the source. “She met with the Queen who wanted to talk through some ideas for flowers and introduced her to some of her events staff. Meghan is taking everything on board, but she has her own ideas when it comes to flowers.”

When Markle was still on Instagram, she posted photographs of her house filled with vases of peonies which she said were her favorite flowers. Expect to see bouquets galore.