MEGHAN Markle marked her wedding anniversary with a series of personal shots, inadvertently reopening old wounds. The conspicuous absence of the royals on the occasion sparked a flurry of chatter online, reigniting conversations about past grievances surrounding wedding preparations, including the bridesmaid dresses and tiaras mentioned in Harry’s memoir ‘Spare’.
Meghan Markle has found herself at the center of online debate after sharing a series of never-before-seen photos from her wedding to Prince Harry to mark their eighth wedding anniversary together.
The former actress and the Duke of Sussex tied the knot at St. George’s Church in the United Kingdom on May 19, 2018, with guests including Serena Williams, Gayle King, David Beckham, George Clooney and Oprah Winfrey in attendance.The post showed a range of intimate moments from the day, including Meghan wrapping her arms around Harry on the dance floor, Harry leaning in to kiss his bride after a toast, and a mother-daughter moment between Meghan and Doria Ragland.
There were also pictures of Elton John performing and Harry hugging Isabel May, a PR director and close friend of Meghan. It is worth noting that the post did not contain any mention or photo of the groom’s family.
Meghan Markle’s anniversary has reignited age-old wedding drama
The post quickly sparked controversy online, receiving hundreds of reactions from social media users. According to Bored Panda, many took issue with the way the publication portrayed the wedding as a purely joyful occasion, pointing to accounts from Meghan’s 2021 private interview and Harry’s 2023 memoir “Spare” that painted a far more complex picture of the lead-up to the day.
“8 years filled with the worst decisions a public figure can make,” one social media user wrote. Another added: “Haha, Elton John, but not any members of the royal family. Are you afraid they will be asked to remove them or reminded that they have not paid the ransom yet?” A third wrote: “She’s so angry that her importance has finally completely faded away.” Meghan has since turned off the comments section of the post, meaning no more public responses can be seen below it.
The bride’s dress scandal involving Kate Middleton has resurfaced
Among the tensions that resurfaced after this post was the famous dispute over the bride’s dress between Meghan and Kate Middleton in the days before the wedding. The dispute reportedly centered around the tailoring of the bridesmaids’ dresses, particularly those of Kate’s daughter, Princess Charlotte.During her 2021 interview, Meghan confirmed there was a tense situation but insisted it “wasn’t confrontational.”
She claimed Kate said something she later regretted, apologized for, and brought her flowers. “What was hard to get past was being blamed for something that not only did I do, but happened to me,” Meghan said at the time. She denied she made Kate cry, insisting instead that the Princess of Wales had “hurt her feelings”.
“In his book “Spare,” Harry wrote that Kate sent a text message to Meghan four days before the wedding saying that Charlotte’s dress was “too big, too long and too loose” and that she cried trying to wear it.
When Meghan suggested that a palace tailor alter the dress, Kate allegedly insisted that all of her bridesmaid dresses must be completely remade. Harry returned home to find Meghan “crying on the kitchen floor.”
The crown dispute also returned to focus
The row over the tiara that Meghan wanted to wear with her Givenchy wedding dress was also revisited. According to Spare, Queen Elizabeth gave her approval for Meghan to borrow Queen Mary’s diamond ring, but the situation escalated when the Queen’s aide, Angela Kelly, informed the couple that Meghan would not be allowed to take the tiara for a try-on session with her hairdresser.Harry wrote that near the wedding day, Kelly “inexplicably” told the couple that the arrangement could no longer go ahead. “I thought about going to Granny, but that would probably mean provoking an all-out confrontation, and I wasn’t quite sure which side Granny would side with,” he wrote in his memoirs.Eight years on from their wedding day, the anniversary post seems to have raised as many questions as fond memories, with the behind-the-scenes tensions of that period showing little sign of fading from public memory.
