The Gist
Nine years ago on July 4, 2016, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle were going on their second date just one night after their (obviously successful) first date at Soho House in London.
The Duke of Sussex told the story of the early days of their courtship in his 2023 memoir Spare—and the very American-themed gift he brought her to apologize for being late to their first date.
It was on this day that Harry and Meghan decided to give their burgeoning relationship “a proper go,” even though they lived on different continents at the time.
Nine years ago tonight in London, one Prince Harry and Meghan Markle met up for their second date—and realized they might be onto something here.
It was July 4, 2016 when the two met up again after their first date just one night prior. The Duke of Sussex wrote all about it in his 2023 memoir, Spare—including the Fourth of July-themed gift he brought his future wife to apologize for being late to their first date the night before.
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Meghan Markle and Prince Harry on August 15, 2024
In his memoir, Harry wrote about first seeing Meghan on Instagram—specifically a video Meghan and a mutual friend named Violet made—describing that he’d “never seen anyone so beautiful” when he saw the Suits actress for the first time. Harry asked Violet to introduce them, and Harry and Meghan met up at Soho House in London. They clicked so effortlessly that they decided to meet up again the next night—July 4.
“She walked in, wearing a pretty blue sundress with white pinstripes,” Harry recalled in Spare. “She was aglow. I stood and said, ‘I bear gifts.’ A pink box. I held it forward. She shook it. ‘What’s this?’”
She opened the box to find “Cupcakes. Red, white, and blue cupcakes, to be exact. In honor of Independence Day. I said something about the Brits having a very different view of Independence Day from the Yanks, but, oh well.” Meghan said she thought the cupcakes “looked amazing.”
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Meghan Markle and Prince Harry on December 6, 2022
At one point in the evening, the two shared a kiss, and “Again the conversation flowed, crackled. Burgers came and went, uneaten. I felt an overwhelming sense of Overture, Prelude, Kettle Drums, Act I. And yet also a sense of ending. A phase of my life—the first half?—was coming to a close.”
“As the night neared its end, we had a very frank discussion,” Harry continued. “There was no way ‘round it. She put a hand to her cheek and said, ‘What’re we gonna doooo?’” referencing their long distance relationship (Harry was based in the U.K. at the time, and Meghan in Toronto, filming Suits).
The two decided to give it “a proper go,” and, after two back-to-back dates in London, the two had a very interesting third date—in Botswana, where they spent a week falling in love.
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Prince Harry and Meghan Markle on August 17, 2024
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Meghan Markle and Prince Harry on August 15, 2024
“For me, it was critical to share it with Meg,” Harry later said of bringing her to a country so special to him. “We had to get to know each other before the rest of the world, before the media sort of, you know, joined it.”
The two were engaged the next year, in 2017, and married less than two years after meeting on May 19, 2018.
Read the original article on InStyle