Harry and Meghan’s First Date Happened 7 Years Ago — Here Are 9 Details About It
Happy anniversary, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. July 3 is a significant day in the couple’s relationship history. Not their wedding anniversary — that’s May 19. July 3 is the day the Duke and Duchess of Sussex met for the first time in 2016 after messaging on Instagram. To mark the occasion, here are some details about Harry and Meghan’s first date.
1. Harry asked Meghan out on July 1 after messaging ‘late into the night’
First, how Harry and Meghan found themselves sitting face-to-face on July 3, 2016. It started two days earlier, on July 1, 2016, when Princes Diana would’ve turned 55.
Harry saw Meghan on Instagram. They perused each other’s profiles and began talking. Eventually, they exchanged phone numbers, and after texting “late into the night,” Harry broached the subject of a date.
“Before turning out the light I asked how long she was going to be in London,” Harry recalled in his Spare memoir. “Damn — she was leaving soon. She had to get back to Canada to resume filming her show [Suits]. I asked if I could see her before she left. I watched the phone, waiting for the answer starting at the endlessly fluttering ellipsis.”
Meghan agreed (her exact response was “Sure!”) and Harry suggested his “place,” Kensington Palace’s Nottingham Cottage. “Your place? On a first date! I don’t think so,” Meghan replied.
The then-Suits star, Harry explained, “didn’t realize that being royal meant being radioactive, that I was unable to just meet at a coffee shop or pub.”
2. Meghan booked a ‘quiet room’ table at Soho House in London
Rather than go to Harry’s house, Meghan proposed Soho House’s 76 Dean Street in London, England, as an “alternative,” which Harry described as his now-wife’s “headquarters” in the city. Meghan, now 41, reserved a table under her name in a “quiet room” at the members-only club where “no one else would be around.”
3. Hary arrived 30 minutes late
Meghan found herself sitting at 76 Dean Street waiting for Harry to arrive on July 3, 2016. As she shared in Netflix’s Harry & Meghan docuseries, the tardiness gave her pause.
She “was just not interested” in “one of those guys who has so much of an ego … that any girl would sit waiting for half an hour for you.”
In the end, Harry showed up 30 minutes late “red-cheeked, puffing, [and] sweaty” after texting Meghan about being stuck in traffic.
“I ran into the restaurant, into the quiet room, and found her at a small sitting area on a low velvet sofa in front of a low coffee table,” he wrote in Spare, noting Meghan was drinking a beer.
4. Harry thought Meghan looked ‘even more beautiful’ than her photos
As they “took it all in,” one thing became painfully obvious to Harry. “Chic” Meghan, sitting across from him in “a black sweater, jeans, heels,” looked different than when he’d Googled her.
“I’d seen so many photos of her from fashion shoots and TV sets, all glam and glossy. But here she was, in the flesh, no frills, no filter … and even more beautiful. Heart-attack beautiful,” he said of the “chasm between internet and reality.”
5. Speaking ‘became a challenge’ for Harry on his first date with Meghan
As Harry tried to “process” the aforementioned “chasm” about Meghan’s looks, he had trouble stringing words together.
“I was trying to process this, struggling the understand what was happening to my circulatory and nervous systems. And as a result my brain couldn’t handle any more data,” he said. “Conversation, pleasantries, the Queen’s English, all became a challenge.”
Meghan, he added, “filled the gap,” talking about her time in London.
6. Harry and Meghan’s first date conversation eventually ‘started to flow’
Following a check-in from their their waitress, who “provided a much-need buffer,” Harry and Meghan’s conversation “started to really flow.”
What Harry described as the “initial awkwardness” faded and, soon, the “warmth” from their texting came back. “We both felt that special thrill when there’s too much to talk about,” he said. “When there isn’t enough time to say all that needs to be said.”
7. Meghan made a quick exit on her and Harry’s first date
Soon after, Meghan announced she had “to go” because of her “dinner plans.” Harry inwardly “cursed” himself for being late as they embraced in a “brief goodbye hug.”
Harry footed the bill for the drinks while Meghan offered to send a bouquvoet of peonies to Violet von Westenholz, as a thank-you for introducing them (Meghan appeared on von Westenholz’s Instagram, where Harry saw her photo.)
Goodbyes were said and “poof,” Meghan left. “Compared to her, Cinderella was the queen of long goodbyes,” Harry recalled.
8. Meghan later apologized to Harry for leaving so soon
Later that same night, Meghan called Harry via FaceTime. She said she was sorry she’d had to run,” Harry recalled his wife of five years saying. She “didn’t want me to think she hadn’t enjoyed meeting me.”
9. Harry and Meghan set up their second date hours after their first
On the same FaceTime call, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex made plans to meet again. They agreed to meet, the next day, on July 4, 2016, once again at Soho House.
