‘Cannabis party bag’ for guests at Meghan’s 1st wedding
GUESTS at Meghan Markle’s first wedding were welcomed with party bags of cannabis, her father claimed yesterday.
A small plastic bag of the drug was offered as a gift in a fabric pouch with a welcome note from Ms Markle and the groom, Hollywood producer Trevor Engelson.
The pair married on a Jamaican beach in September 2011 but divorced two years later. Thomas Markle said he did not smoke his welcome gift, adding: ‘It’s illegal, but it’s no big deal in Jamaica.
‘It’s almost customary down there. I don’t smoke weed and to the best of my knowledge nor does Meghan.’
The award-winning TV lighting director, who lives by the beach in Mexico, said: ‘I don’t know what I did with mine. I think I gave it away.
‘I kept the bag and I use it to keep the sea air off one of my Emmys.’
Ms Markle booked all 55 rooms at the luxury Jamaica Inn for the wedding. It was attended by 100 guests including the cast of Suits, the TV legal drama series in which she starred.
Mr Markle, who is now estranged from Meghan, revealed details of the four-day ceremony in order to rubbish claims that he had failed to attend.
He showed the Mail on Sunday the ‘save the date’ invitation which shows his daughter entwined with Mr Engelson on a beach next to palm trees and a bottle of Red Stripe beer. And he unearthed a photograph of him with his arm around Meghan moments before he walked her down the aisle.
Mr Markle, 74, explained that he did not appear in any of the official pictures from the sun-drenched nuptials because he asked the photographer to focus on the younger guests in their bikinis.
He said: ‘There are no pictures out there of me at the wedding because it was on the beach and everyone else was in their 30s and I was in my 60s.’
Guests were offered ‘beach yoga’ sessions with Ms Markle’s mother Doria Ragland and the couple hosted a ‘beach Olympics’ with events such as tug-of-war and kayaking.
Mr Markle helped pay for the celebration and hosted a brunch on the final day.
He also received a special ‘thank you’ for his ‘incredible generosity’.
He did not attend his daughter’s wedding to Prince Harry in Windsor in May after apparently suffering two heart attacks in the weeks before.
He has been accused of faking the episode out of embarrassment over staged paparazzi pictures taken shortly before the ceremony. But Mr Markle showed a series of private medical bills and letters, saying they proved he was too ill to travel to Britain.
He added: ‘I had two attacks, the second of which the doctor called a widow-maker and nearly killed me.’