- Prince Harry and Meghan Markle revealed they exchanged vows three days before their
wedding . - The unofficial ceremony allowed them to focus on their love instead of the fanfare of the day.
- It also spotlights that big royal weddings don't work for modern members of the monarchy.
Like millions of other people around the world, I woke up in the wee hours of the morning to watch Prince Harry and Meghan Markle get married.
I sat bleary-eyed in my pajamas, watching raptly as the royal couple said their vows for the first time - or so I thought.
In their new bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey, Markle and Harry revealed they secretly exchanged vows in a private ceremony three days before their televised wedding.
The wedding likely wasn't legal according to experts, but it felt more real to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex than a ceremony that the whole world could see.
Their private ceremony emphasizes that royal weddings as we know them are dated and out of touch with the needs of modern couples.
Royal weddings aren't about the people getting married
Harry and Markle told Winfrey they exchanged vows privately in their backyard three days before their wedding.
"We called the archbishop and we just said, 'This thing, this spectacle is for the world, but we want our union between us,'" Markle said. "So the vows that we have framed in our room are just the two of us in our backyard with the Archbishop of Canterbury."
It's hard to imagine how a
Since Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip tied the knot in 1947, royal weddings have been televised for the world to see, and they've only become more of an event as new generations have gotten married.
Over 29 million viewers tuned in to watch Harry and Markle's wedding, which cost an estimated $45.8 million.
Because cameras follow a royal couple's every move during their wedding ceremony, they have no opportunity to privately absorb the meaning of their vows as they marry.
Markle and Harry's decision to say their vows privately indicates the public ceremony wasn't something they actually wanted to do; rather, it was a convention they had no choice but to adhere to.
In part, the public nature of royal nuptials comes from the rules of the Church of England, which requires a wedding to take place in a church or a location with a special license, as Insider's Monica Humphries previously reported. Ceremonies must also have at least two witnesses to be legal.
But it's hard to believe the monarchy couldn't find a more private location that fits those specifications.
It seems like the
We already have an example of how an alternative royal wedding could work
Princess Beatrice of York secretly tied the knot over the summer in Windsor after postponing her big wedding plans as a result of the pandemic.
The Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh, and close family were the only attendees, according to a statement from Buckingham Palace.
The couple shared photos of the day on social media and with the press after the ceremony. No video footage of the ceremony has been shared at the time of writing.
The secret ceremony was tiny compared to the massive wedding celebrations Prince William and Prince Harry had when they tied the knot.
But it was still very much a royal wedding - at a fraction of the price, particularly since Beatrice rewore a dress and tiara of her grandmother's.
Beatrice's wedding proved that a costly, televised event isn't necessary for a royal to get married.
Her nuptials should act as a model for how future royal couples get married, where the couple is the focus instead of the global audience, even if that's hard for fans of the royal family to accept.
If Prince George gets married someday and decides to just share photos of the day on social media, I'll be just as excited as I was to watch his father say his vows on TV - and happy he made the right choice for him.