Next spring, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle will be getting married. After they announced their engagement the other day, they have confessed to being “totally unprepared” to deal with the media circus that’s been following them around ever since they first got together. Their relationship has been going on now for eighteen months, and about the engagement, Harry said he is “thrilled” to be marrying her.
In their first public appearance since announcing their engagement, Harry and Markle gave a 20-minute televised interview from Kensington Palace.
Representatives of the Palace are being expected to announce where the venue of the wedding will be, as well as details about the ceremony and all of the processes and royal engagements that Markle will have to go through in order to integrate herself into the Royal Family.
Mishal Husain conducted the interview
The lengthy TV interview was conducted by Mishal Husain, and during it, Harry and Markle revealed the story of their proposal. The prince proposed to the actress on what was apparently “a standard, typical night in for us” on the grounds of Kensington Palace in his Nottingham Cottage home, while they were preparing a dinner of roast chicken (because that really matters).
Markle said that the proposal was “an amazing surprise” and that the way he did it spontaneously while they were roasting a chicken (remember that part) was “so sweet and natural and very romantic.” The actress explained that Harry did the whole to-do with the getting down on one knee and everything, but he took too long with the actual speech of the proposal, and halfway through, she asked him, “Can I say yes now?”
Markle, being mixed-race, has been the subject of scrutiny in the media ever since her relationship with the prince was announced.
Harry has publicly noted his disgust at the “racial undertones” of the British press’ reporting of their relationship. Markle’s mother is African-American, while her father is Caucasian, and she herself has described the racially-driven media coverage as “disheartening” and “discriminatory.” One example of the racially-based headlines is the Daily Mail’s “Harry’s girl is (almost) straight outta Compton,” a reference to the city in Los Angeles that is typically known for African-American gang violence.
Markle was startled by the media storm
The media storm that has been surrounding Harry and Markle throughout their relationship came as something of a surprise to Markle, who despite being a somewhat big name with a supporting role in the TV series “Suits,” was nowhere near prepared to deal with the intense scrutiny from the British media that the royal family are put under.
She said of the learning experience that being so clearly in the public eye has given her, “I did not have any understanding of what it would be like.”
Harry claims that he designed the engagement ring for Markle himself from a stone that he obtained from Botswana, a place where the two of them went camping during the first few weeks of their relationship. The ring also contained two smaller gems that he nabbed from his late mother Princess Diana’s jewellery collection. The inclusion of Diana’s own jewellery was, according to Harry, “to make sure that she’s with us on this crazy journey together.”
On most people’s minds when Prince Harry announced his engagement to be married was the possibility of a new bank holiday being instated to celebrate the wedding.
So, Downing Street swooped in nice and early to chuck a bucket of water of everybody’s fire by announcing that there are currently “no plans” for a new bank holiday. They also reminded us that neither Prince Andrew’s wedding in 1986 nor Prince Edward’s in 1999 had a bank holiday.