The ‘pre-wedding’ that wasn’t
According to Harry and Meghan, the star-studded wedding watched by the world — and which British taxpayers funded to the tune of more than £30 million — was an expensive sham.
instead, they told a slack-jawed oprah that they’d actually plighted their troth in a secret ceremony 72 hours earlier.
‘Three days before our wedding, we got married,’ Meghan claimed. ‘no one knows that. But we called the Archbishop, and we just said: “Look, this thing, this spectacle is for the world, but we want our union between us.”
‘So, like, the vows that we have framed in our room are just the two of us in our backyard with the Archbishop of canterbury.’
Harry added, singing: ‘Just the three of us!’
it was quite the revelation. But if there really were just ‘three’ people present, then a legal wedding can’t actually have happened.
This is because the law dictates that anyone marrying in England needs two witnesses, as well as the person officiating. in other words, at least five people must be there.
Furthermore, if what Harry and Meghan told oprah was true, it follows that the Archbishop of canterbury, the man in charge of the worldwide Anglican communion, had not only broken the law, but then presided over a fake royal wedding at St george’s chapel, at Windsor castle, on May 19, 2018, in the presence of the groom’s grandmother, the Queen, who is the titular head of the church of England.
This didn’t happen, according to the Special Licences Section of the office of the Archbishop, which commented this week: ‘A special licence was issued for the marriage in St george’s.’
So what really happened in the couple’s ‘backyard’? According to an informed source at Lambeth Palace, the episode Meghan refers to was actually a ‘rehearsal’ of the wedding ceremony, during which — as is normal — the couple went through their wedding vows.
At its conclusion the archbishop, Justin Welby, also blessed the couple. What he did not do was marry them.