In addition to confirming that both of Meghan Markle’s parents will attend her May 19 wedding to Prince Harry, Kensington Palace shared a number of other details about the royal wedding happening at Windsor Castle.
First of all, Markle won’t have a maid of honor. Instead she will be “assisted” on the day by a handful of close girlfriends who will include her best friend, stylist Jessica Mulroney.Vanity Fair reported in early April that Mulroney was serving as a “secret wedding planner,” and was intimately involved in the details of planning the big event.
While the Palace would not give details of the bridal party (they will be announced in due course), the bridal party will be made up of children who will be bridesmaids and page boys. Prince George and Princess Charlotte are both expected to be in the wedding party. Kensington Palace has confirmed that Kate Middletonwill attend the wedding, just weeks after giving birth, but the couple’s new son, Prince Louis, will be staying at home.
As is traditional, the bride and groom will spend the night before their wedding apart, with Markle expected to stay with her parents. Harry will spend the night before the wedding with his brother, William, and may carry out a walkabout in Windsor to meet some of the well-wishers who will be gathered outside the castle. William carried out an impromptu walkabout outside Clarence House the night before his wedding back in April 2011.
As newlyweds, the new Duke Harry and Duchess Meghan (their titles will be announced by Buckingham Palace on the morning of the wedding) will spend their first night as man and wife at Windsor Castle after the party at Frogmore House finishes. The couple won’t be jetting off on a honeymoon immediately after their wedding, however. Instead, they will be getting straight to work and are scheduled to carry out an engagement in the week after their wedding. Their honeymoon, which courtiers said will remain strictly private, will follow at a later date.
Secrecy still surrounds Markle’s dress, which will remain a secret until the moment she steps out of her car at St. George’s Chapel.
With two weeks to go until the wedding, a spokesman said the couple was determined that everyone could feel part of their special day.
We are now just over two weeks away from the wedding of His Royal
Highness Prince Henry of Wales and Ms. Meghan Markle. As they have
traveled around the U.K. in the months since their engagement last
November, Prince Harry and Ms. Markle have been incredibly grateful
for the support they have received from members of the public.
The crowds that have turned out in Nottingham, Cardiff, Brixton,
Edinburgh, Birmingham, Belfast, Bath, and elsewhere have given Ms.
Markle a welcome to the United Kingdom marked by warmth, enthusiasm,
and a real sense of fun.
We said from the outset that Prince Harry and Ms. Markle were keen to
make sure that members of the public would have the opportunity to
feel part of the celebrations on their wedding day. This is their way
of expressing their gratitude for the messages of support they have
received from around the U.K., the Commonwealth, Ms. Markle’s home
country of the United States, and right around the world.
Markle is due to arrive in Windsor on Friday, according to the spokesman: “The key moment for the day before will be the arrival of the bride at her accommodation. We expect this to happen early evening.”
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Full ScreenPhotos:21 Times Queen Elizabeth Wore Exactly the Right Thing to a Wedding
November 29, 1934
This Westminster Abbey wedding—between the Queen’s uncle, Prince George, Duke of Kent, and Princess Marina, daughter of Prince Nicholas of Greece and Denmark—is where she and the eventual Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, met. She was 8, and he was 14.
Photo: From Haynes Archive/Popperfoto/Getty Images.
May 6, 1960
Queen Elizabeth’s sister, Princess Margaret, married photographer Antony Armstrong-Jones at Westminster Abbey. (She didn’t serve as a bridesmaid; queens are not other people’s attendants.) It was the first British royal wedding to be televised, and for the occasion, royal designer Norman Hartnell made her a turquoise gown with a bolero jacket to match.
Photo: By Derek Berwin/Fox Photos/Hulton Archive/Getty Images.
June 8, 1961
The Queen wore a deep blush dress with matching hat and duster to the wedding of her cousin, Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, and Katharine, Duchess of Kent, at York Minster.
Photo: From Popperfoto/Getty Images.
April 24, 1963
The popular Princess Alexandra of Kent is the Queen’s first cousin and served as a bridesmaid in Her Majesty’s wedding when she was 10. (And before Princess Elizabeth became Queen, the two were bridesmaids together in the wedding of Captain Lord Brabourne and Patricia Mountbatten.) Alexandra married the Honorable Angus Ogilvy at Westminster Abbey.
Photo: From Popperfoto/Getty Images.
April 29, 2011
Angela Kelly and team designed the Queen’s pale yellow, crepe-wool dress and matching hat for Kate Middleton and Prince William’s wedding. A particularly great feature is the pleats that resemble sunrays emanating from the collar, so Elizabeth looked like some kind of sun Queen.
Photo: By Ben Stansall/AFP/Getty Images.
July 30, 2011
The Queen chose the rare pale-pink look for her granddaughter Zara Phillips’s wedding to the English rugby player Mike Tindall in Edinburgh.
Photo: By David Hartley/Rupert Hartley/REX/Shutterstock.
June 25, 2016
And yet, she chose a similar look that’s subtly different for the wedding of Alexandra Knatchbull, great-granddaughter of the Queen’s cousin, Earl Mountbatten, and Thomas Hooper. Congratulations to the couple and to the Queen’s many successes as a very important wedding guest.
Photo: By David Hartley/REX/Shutterstock.
November 29, 1934
This Westminster Abbey wedding—between the Queen’s uncle, Prince George, Duke of Kent, and Princess Marina, daughter of Prince Nicholas of Greece and Denmark—is where she and the eventual Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, met. She was 8, and he was 14.
From Haynes Archive/Popperfoto/Getty Images.
May 6, 1960
Queen Elizabeth’s sister, Princess Margaret, married photographer Antony Armstrong-Jones at Westminster Abbey. (She didn’t serve as a bridesmaid; queens are not other people’s attendants.) It was the first British royal wedding to be televised, and for the occasion, royal designer Norman Hartnell made her a turquoise gown with a bolero jacket to match.
By Derek Berwin/Fox Photos/Hulton Archive/Getty Images.
June 8, 1961
The Queen wore a deep blush dress with matching hat and duster to the wedding of her cousin, Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, and Katharine, Duchess of Kent, at York Minster.
From Popperfoto/Getty Images.
April 24, 1963
The popular Princess Alexandra of Kent is the Queen’s first cousin and served as a bridesmaid in Her Majesty’s wedding when she was 10. (And before Princess Elizabeth became Queen, the two were bridesmaids together in the wedding of Captain Lord Brabourne and Patricia Mountbatten.) Alexandra married the Honorable Angus Ogilvy at Westminster Abbey.
From Popperfoto/Getty Images.
November 14, 1973
The Queen plays mother of the bride at the wedding of her only daughter, Princess Anne, to Captain Mark Anthony Peter Phillips at Westminster Abbey. Her Majesty wore a royal-blue number with diamond-shaped details from—guess who?—Sir Norman Hartnell.
By Anwar Hussein/Getty Images.
October 20, 1979
She put a pin in her typical matching outfit to do a color-blocked coat and turban for the wedding of Prince Charles’s Gordonstoun classmate Norton Knatchbull at Romsey Abbey.
By Tim Graham/Getty Images.
July 29, 1981
The Queen’s mother-of-the-groom outfit for Prince Charles and Diana’s wedding featured one of her favorite brooches. The 23.6-carat pink diamond in the middle was a wedding gift from Dr. John Williamson, a Canadian who owned the Tanzanian mine where the diamond was found. She had Cartier design and make the brooch in 1953, and has worn it for special occasions, including several more weddings, ever since.
From Uncredited/AP/REX/Shutterstock.
July 23, 1986
Once again, the Queen plays mother of the groom for Prince Andrew’s wedding to Sarah Ferguson at Westminster Abbey, this time in lilac and pearls.
From Historia/REX/Shutterstock.
July 30, 1988
Her Majesty wears the rare patterned coat and dress to the wedding of James Ogilvy—son of the Queen’s cousin Princess Alexandra of Kent, the Honorable Lady Ogilvy—and Julia Rawlinson at St. Mary the Virgin Church. Though she’s a guest at someone else’s wedding, Queen Elizabeth is bound to stand out. As Caroline de Guitaut, the curator at the Royal Collection Trust, told The New York Times in 2016, “The Queen has always been aware that she needs to stand out from the crowd, and it is for this reason that millinery has always played an important role in her wardrobe.” She added that the hats, like the one above, are strategic, and made to ensure that “her face is fully visible, but also framed in a range of styles over the years that were often considered very avant-garde for their day.”
By Jayne Fincher/Princess Diana Archive/Getty Images.
December 12, 1992
The Queen may have had only one daughter, but she had two chances to be M.O.B. Anne re-married in the 90s to Vice Admiral Sir Timothy James Hamilton Laurence at Crathie Kirk. For the occasion, the Queen matched the tartan in head-to-knees emerald.
From RA/REX/NRE/REX/Shutterstock.
October 8, 1993
Speaking of hats that show off the Queen’s face, she wore this upturned salmon pink one by Philip Somerville to her nephew Viscount Linley’s wedding to the Honorable Serena Stanhope. The brooch she wore to Diana’s wedding makes another appearance.
By Michael Floyd/Daily Mail /REX/Shutterstock.
July 14, 1994
One of the Queen’s clear favorites, Princess Margaret’s daughter and her niece, Lady Sarah Armstrong-Jones, married Daniel Chatto at a small ceremony of only 200 at St. Stephen Walbrook. (The church, a small 17th-century building in London, was supposedly chosen to keep the wedding party intimate.)
REX/From REX/Shutterstock.
July 1, 1995
On the opposite end of extravagance to Lady Sarah’s wedding was the nuptials of Prince Pavlos to Marie-Chantal Miller. Nearly the entire royal family attended their ceremony at the Cathedral of St. Sophia in London. The pre-wedding dinner dance boasted 1,300 guests, and the reception involved a garden party with a tent that looked like the Acropolis. For the occasion, the queen wore lilac.
By Tim Graham/Getty Images.
November 7, 1998
The Queen wore banana yellow to the wedding of Timothy Knatchbull and Isabella Norman, which she attended with Princess Margaret, who wore all green. She also chose a pearl and diamond brooch that once belonged to Queen Mary, and was passed down from Mary’s grandmother, Princess Augusta, Duchess of Cambridge. Yes, it’s the Duchess of Cambridge brooch. (No word yet if it will be passed on to its current namesake.) Queen Mary wore it as a necklace to Elizabeth’s christening, as well as to Charles’s christening in 1948.
By Tim Rooke/REX/Shutterstock.
June 19, 1999
Once again the mother of the groom, Queen Elizabeth broke out of her suit habit and wore a lilac dress to the wedding of her youngest son, Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex, to Sophie Helen Rhys-Jones at St. George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle. By now, she had been working with Angela Kelly, a dress maker and milliner, who became the personal assistant to the Queen in 2002, and has made, commissioned, or curated the Queen’s wardrobe ever since.
By Tim Graham/Getty Images.
November 6, 2004
A royal purple for the wedding of Lady Tamara Grosvenor, daughter of the Duke of Westminster, and Edward van Cutsem. Edward is a friend of William, and Edward’s dad, Hugh, was a friend of Prince Charles.
By Tim Rooke/REX/Shutterstock.
April 9, 2005
Prince Charles and Camilla were married before this photo was taken, which is from the reception. The Queen skipped the ceremony, since both her son and Camilla were divorcées and she is the head of the Church of England.
From ROTA-Pool/Getty Images.
May 17, 2008
Prince Harry kisses his grandmother on the cheek at her grandson Peter Phillips’s wedding to Autumn Kelly at St. George’s Chapel in Windsor. The silk brocade coat and dress are by Angela Kelly, as is the thin crown of feathers. The headpiece is an unusual look for the Queen, but it abides by her main rules for headwear: out of her face and locked in, so her hands are free for waving.
By Sang Tan/AFP/Getty Images.
April 29, 2011
Angela Kelly and team designed the Queen’s pale yellow, crepe-wool dress and matching hat for Kate Middleton and Prince William’s wedding. A particularly great feature is the pleats that resemble sunrays emanating from the collar, so Elizabeth looked like some kind of sun Queen.
By Ben Stansall/AFP/Getty Images.
July 30, 2011
The Queen chose the rare pale-pink look for her granddaughter Zara Phillips’s wedding to the English rugby player Mike Tindall in Edinburgh.
By David Hartley/Rupert Hartley/REX/Shutterstock.
June 25, 2016
And yet, she chose a similar look that’s subtly different for the wedding of Alexandra Knatchbull, great-granddaughter of the Queen’s cousin, Earl Mountbatten, and Thomas Hooper. Congratulations to the couple and to the Queen’s many successes as a very important wedding guest.
By David Hartley/REX/Shutterstock.
Katie NichollKatie Nicholl, based in London, is Vanity Fair’s Royal Correspondent and author of, most recently, Harry Life Loss and Love.