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Prince Harry has taken a very different path in life to his big brother Prince William and this also applies to how he first met his wife. There was no friendship-turned-romance at university to bring the Sussexes together like Kate and William. Instead, Harry hadn’t even met Meghan, let alone asked her on a date, when he first laid eyes on her.
Writing in his best-selling memoir, Spare, the King’s younger son recounted how he came across a video of a mystery woman whilst scrolling through Instagram in 2016. This woman was, of course, Meghan Markle and she was in the clip with Harry’s friend Violet von Westenholz.
“They were playing with a new app that put silly filters on your photos. Violet and the woman had dog ears, dog noses, long red dog tongues hanging out. Despite the canine cartoon overlay, I sat up straighter. This woman with Violet… my God,” he wrote.
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His mesmerised reaction to seeing his now-wife led him to watch the video “several times”, adding that he’d “never seen anyone so beautiful”.
“She believed life was one grand adventure. I could see that. What a privilege it would be, I thought to join her on that journey. In that moment I felt there might be only one face for me,” the Duke of Sussex declared.
Meghan has since described her and Harry’s romance as a “modern fairytale” and it’s hard to argue that this chance glimpse and the meeting that followed sound like they’ve sprung from the pages of a love story. With hindsight, the Prince’s response to seeing Meghan made what happened next almost inevitable.
He described sending Violet a message asking to be introduced to Meghan and she obliged.
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Before long, the royal and the Suits star had connected, exchanged numbers and were exchanging so many messages that Harry felt he was “texting like a teenager”. The Duke of Sussex said as much when he reflected on a visit to the home of entrepreneur Sir Keith Mills.
He said he was texting Meghan “throughout the long drive and up the stairs into his guestroom” where he “locked the door and remained holed up”.
Harry wrote, “I sat on my bed texting like a teenager until it was time to have dinner with Sir Keith and his family. Then, after dessert, I quickly returned to the guestroom and resumed texting.”
Texting turned into a date at exclusive members’ club, Soho House, and from there the romance blossomed, leading to them enjoying a week-long trip to Botswana on what was technically their third date.
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Within a little over a year, the couple were announcing their engagement. The news is said to have prompted Prince Philip’s harsh warning to his grandson and concern from William about the speed things were going, though Harry and Meghan happily tied the knot in May 2028.
Royal author Robert Jobson has suggested in his book, The Windsor Legacy, that King Charles was delighted about his son’s new relationship but by the time they got engaged, was a little more “restrained”.
“Charles initially thought Meghan was good for Harry,” he declares. “She pressed all the right buttons, said the right things. He liked her, as did Camilla. But by the time of the engagement announcement, his enthusiasm seemed to have waned. When staff offered their congratulations, his response was notably restrained.”