When Prince Harry and Meghan Markle emerged from St George’s Chapel as husband and wife, their wedding was already being touted as a picture-perfect affair.
The Royal Family looked more united than ever. Prince William was best man and Prince Charles even walked Meghan down the aisle.
But behind the idyllic scenes on that sunny Saturday in 2018, royal authors say tensions within the Firm had been running high for months – with claims that Harry and Meghan had been at loggerheads with royal staff throughout the preparations for the big day.
Tina Brown in her bestselling book The Palace Papers even went so far as to claim that the lead-up to the wedding was a ‘s*** show’ and said sources told her: ‘Preparation for the Sussex union was all drama, all the time.’
It was Harry and Meghan at the centre, and aides told Brown that they became ‘fed up’ with the Sussexes’ constant demands.
Two major flashpoints are believed to have stemmed from discussions over which tiara Meghan was to wear and bridesmaid dresses.
The soon-to-be Duchess of Sussex clashed with Angela Kelly, the late Queen Elizabeth’s personal advisor for her wardrobe, over her tiara, according to royal writer Tom Bower.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle leave St George’s Chapel as the newly minted Duke and Duchess of Sussex in May 2018
Harry and Meghan wave at well-wishers during their wedding
Queen Elizabeth II at Harry and Meghan’s wedding
‘Meghan alighted on a tiara sparkling with emeralds. Her choice was approved by Harry. Kelly suggested that its Russian origin made it unsuitable,’ Bowers wrote in his biography Revenge, which documents Harry and Meghan’s fall-out with the Royal Family.
Harry reportedly became angry with Kelly, leading to the prince receiving a dressing down from his grandmother.
During the meeting, Harry was put ‘firmly in his place’ and warned by the Queen that ‘Meghan cannot have whatever she wants. She gets what tiara she’s given by me,’ The Times reported.
Meghan eventually opted to wear Queen Mary’s Diamond Bandeau, but this was not the end of the tiara-related drama.
During wedding rehearsals, Meghan asked that the tiara be taken out of storage so her hairdresser – who had flown from New York – could work around the £2million headwear.
The request was refused on the grounds that permission was needed from the Queen herself.
Harry once again became angry with Kelly and reportedly told her: ‘What Meghan wants, Meghan gets’.
Ingrid Seward, author of My Mother And I, claimed Harry’s behaviour led to yet another meeting with the Queen.
Kate Middleton with a young Princess Charlotte as a bridesmaid on the wedding day
Meghan smiles while wearing Queen Mary’s Diamond Bandeau on her wedding day
Leading members of the Royal Family in St George’s Chapel during the ceremony
According to Seward, Lady Elizabeth Anson – Queen Elizabeth’s cousin and close friend – said that that the monarch was ‘dismayed by Harry’s high-handed attitude before and after the wedding’, which is likely in reference to the tiara fiasco.
But perhaps the most notorious clash of personalities took place between Meghan and her soon-to-be sister-in-law Kate Middleton.
It has been widely reported that the tense stand-off between Kate and Meghan took place after Charlotte’s fitting for her bridesmaid dress.
According to Bower, Kate allegedly believed that the bridesmaids should wear tights as per royal protocol. However, at Meghan’s ‘insistence’ the tradition was dropped.
Their biggest disagreement was over the length of Charlotte’s hem, which Kate believed was too short for the three-year-old princess.
Meghan’s assistant Melissa Toubati and dress-fitter Clare Waight Keller claimed to have ‘witnessed Meghan emphatically reject Kate’s observation,’ Bower said.
The altercation caused Kate to burst into tears according to presenter and friend of Queen Camilla, Kirstie Allsopp.
Reports differ about what happened next. Bower wrote that Kate went over to Meghan’s quarters in Kensington Palace with a bunch of flowers and asked her not to speak rudely to her staff.
Harry and Meghan share a kiss outside St George’s Chapel
The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh in the chapel
‘In Kate’s version, Meghan slammed the door in her face and threw the flowers in a dustbin,’ Bower wrote.
After the wedding it was the now-Princess of Wales’ report of the altercation that made headlines about Meghan’s ‘diva’ behaviour.
Brown wrote that the Duchess of Sussex ‘demanded the Palace denounce or correct the story’ and she was ‘outraged’ when they did not immediately deny the claim.
‘The culture of the Palace press department is almost never to comment on personal matters relating to the family,’ Brown added.
Meghan would recall her version of events during her bombshell interview with US talk show host Oprah Winfrey in 2021.
There, she claimed that the tears were in fact hers, and the flowers an apology.
‘A few days before the wedding, she was upset about something pertaining – yes, the issue was correct – about flower-girl dresses, and it made me cry, and it really hurt my feelings,’ Meghan said during the interview.
‘What was hard to get over was being blamed for something that not only I didn’t do but that happened to me.’
And the people who were part of our wedding going to our comms team and saying, “I know this didn’t happen”. I don’t have to tell them what actually happened,’ she added.
Tensions were inflamed further during Harry and Meghan’s controversial interview with Oprah Winfrey
Harry’s memoir, Spare, added fuel to the fire when it was published in 2023
After the wedding, Harry and Meghan’s ‘mutual addiction to drama’ – as Brown wrote – did not end after the couple stepped down as working royals, and they have been at loggerheads with other members of the Royal Family on numerous occasions since.
Tensions were inflamed further during Harry and Meghan’s controversial interview with Oprah and following the publication of his memoir Spare in 2023.
Lady Elizabeth told royal biographer Katie Nicholl: ‘I don’t think the Queen ever truly understood Harry’s decision to leave.
‘Turning one’s back on duty is completely alien to the Queen and she has been left very hurt by it all.’
Harry and Meghan’s Oprah interview only damaged the increasingly fraught relationship with the Royal Family further.
While the Queen did not live to see the publication of Harry’s memoir, it is likely she would not have approved of the intimate details of royal life revealed in the bestselling book.
This included revelations that Harry allegedly lost his virginity to a much older woman in a field behind a pub and that he took cocaine at 17 and smoked marijuana at Eton.
The Duke of Sussex also revealed his last words to the late Queen when she was on her deathbed in Balmoral in September 2022.
A Royal Family portrait at the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle
Harry claimed he whispered to his grandmother that he ‘hoped she was happy’ and would be reunited with her husband, the late Duke of Edinburgh, who died in April 2021.
Harry also claimed in the book that he and William had pleaded with their father not to marry Camilla.
‘We support you, we said. We endorse Camilla, we said. Just please don’t marry her. Just be together, Pa,’ Harry wrote.
On top of this, he claimed that Kate and Meghan had a row over the Duchess of Sussex’s comment that the Princess of Wales had ‘baby brain’, and he described his brother as his ‘arch-nemesis’.
It has been previously been claimed that Prince Harry had second-thoughts about publishing the book after he returned home following the Queen’s death.
But publication went ahead and it has only pushed an even greater wedge between Harry and the other royals.
Though no members of the Royal Family have publicly commented on Harry’s foray into writing, it’s understood that behind the scenes, the reaction was one of pain.
