First details revealed about royal wedding
START planning your parties, royal watchers. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have revealed when and where they will tie the knot.
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MARK your calendars, royal watchers. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle will tie the knot in May 2018.
Kensington Palace has revealed the first details of plans for the big royal wedding, after the pair’s engagement was announced on Monday.
The wedding ceremony will be held at St George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle, which is one of the Queen’s residences, after she granted the new royal couple permission to wed there.
Exactly which date in May the event will be held is yet to be announced. The UK government has said there were no plans for a national holiday as there was for Prince William and Kate Middleton’s wedding in 2011. However, the UK already has two holidays that month, scheduled for May 7 and 28, 2018.
A palace spokesman said Prince Harry and Ms Markle had “regularly spent time” at the castle over their 18-month courtship.
“They are grateful to the Queen for granting permission for the use of the chapel,” he said. “Prince Harry and Ms Markle are delighted that the beautiful grounds of Windsor Castle will be where they begin their lives together as a married couple.”
The couple were “working through ideas” for the celebration but wanted it to be filled with “fun and joy”, the spokesman said.
“This wedding, like all weddings, will be a moment of fun and joy that will reflect the characters of the bride and groom,” he said.
The royal family will pay for “core aspects” of the wedding, including the church, flowers, music, decorations and reception. It’s yet to be determined, however, if we can expect the ceremony to be televised.
The palace spokesman said the celebration would reflect the couple’s characters and personalities and would rise to the high standards of a royal wedding.
Because Ms Markle has no royal staff of her own, she will be supported by Harry’s team as the big day approaches.
“Prince Harry and Ms Markle are leading the planning process for all aspects of the wedding. We look forward to sharing these details with you in the months ahead as decisions are made,” the spokesman said.
Already more than 99,000 people have marked themselves “interested” in going to Prince Harry’s buck’s party, or “stag do”, on Facebook, with around 30,000 saying they are “going” to the spoof event.
The nuptials will come on the heels of another royal event, the birth of Prince William and Kate’s third child, who is due in April.
Meanwhile, Ms Markle’s priority is to learn more about the UK. She intends to become a UK citizen, a process that takes a number of years, but will retain US citizenship in the meantime.
The couple will undertake their first official engagement on Friday to visit Nottingham where Prince Harry has worked with young people on youth violence issues. The visit will coincide with World Aids Day and the couple will visit an art centre for an event designed to “smash the stigma” of having HIV.
The palace said Ms Markle “cannot wait” to meet the young people Prince Harry has told her about and she is looking forward to throwing herself into UK life. She will become a patron of the Royal Foundation established by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry after the wedding and will step down from her other charity roles, including with World Vision Canada, to focus on her royal duties.
Ms Markle is in the process of having her belongings shipped to London and will travel to visit friends in the next few weeks before relocating there permanently.
The couple will live in Nottingham Cottage at Kensington Palace, London, for the “forseeable future”, where William and Catherine already live.
The bad news is one of Ms Markle’s beloved rescue dogs Bogart will not join them in the UK, as he is living with a friend in what is n ow a “permanent situation.” Guy the Beagle made the cut and has already been relocated.
Her first international visit will likely be to Sydney in October for the Invictus Games, a sporting competition for injured military members veterans, which Harry is due to attend
‘HAPPY MOMENT IN THEIR LIVES’
Prince Harry and Ms Markle said they were “extremely grateful for the warm public response” they received yesterday to news of their upcoming we,dding.
“Yesterday was an incredibly happy day for them... and it was a fun day for them as well,” the spokesman said.
Prince Harry’s bride-to-be is a Protestant, so she will be baptised into the Church of England before the wedding.
Further details, such as who is to be the best man and the level of public involvement in the day will be revealed during the next six months.
On Tuesday the Duchess of Cambridge, Kate, said she was “thrilled” about news of the engagement.
“William and I are absolutely thrilled. It’s such exciting news,” she said. “It’s a really happy time for any couple and we wish them all the best and hope they enjoy this happy moment.”
Ms Markle has met all of the main figures in the royal family, including the Queen, Prince Charles and William and Kate’s children, Prince George and Princess Charlotte.
ABOUT THE WEDDING VENUE
St George’s Chapel is found within the walls of Windsor Castle, about an hour’s drive west of London.
It has been the site of weddings for a number of lesser-ranked members of the royal family, including the union of the Queen’s son, Prince Edward, to Sophie Rhys-Jones in 1999.
It is also where the marriage of Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles received an official blessing from the Archbishop of Canterbury in 2005.
The 14th-century structure is considered a more low-key venue that London’s Westminster Abbey, which hosted the weddings of Queen Elizabeth II to Prince Philip, and Prince William to Kate, Duchess of Cambridge.
The chapel can seat 800 guests, compared to the abbey, which can accommodate 2000.
Originally published as First details revealed about royal wedding
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