Prince William’s Question That Made Prince Harry ‘Sick’ the Night Before His Wedding to Meghan Markle
The night before his 2018 royal wedding to Meghan Markle wasn’t exactly stress-free for Prince Harry. In his Spare memoir, he recounted how a simple question from Prince William made him “sick” on the eve of his wedding. Not about the bride, the Duchess of Sussex. Or even the wedding itself. Rather, a tradition of sorts for the brothers.
William asked Harry about ‘saying hello to the crowds’ before marrying Meghan Markle
After all the drama of planning a royal wedding, the night before the ceremony, May 18, 2018, finally arrived. The Duke of Sussex stayed at Coworth Park Hotel, hoping to participate in a little royal wedding tradition with William, greeting crowds outside the church.
However, as Harry revealed in the 2023 book, William wasn’t interested in recreating the moment they’d shared ahead of his 2011 royal wedding to Kate Middleton.
“Why are you even saying hello to the crowds, Harold?” Harry recalled William asking in Spare, to which he said: “Because the press office told me to. As we did at your wedding.”
“You don’t need to listen to them,” William replied, prompting Harry to ask, “Since bloody when?”
The brief exchange didn’t sit well with Harry. “I felt sick about it,” he wrote. “I’d always believed, despite our problems, that our underlying bond was strong. I’d thought brotherhood would always trump a bridesmaid’s dress or a beard. Suppose not.”
William joined Harry to greet well-wishers after a possible nudge from Queen Elizabeth II
Harry continued, recalling how William ended up joining him after a meeting with their grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, who might’ve “intervened.”
“Then, just after leaving Granny, around six p.m., Willy texted. He’d changed his mind. he’d come,” Harry wrote. “Maybe Granny intervened? Whatever. I thanked him happily, heartily.”
From there, a car took Harry and William to King Edward Gate, where they “walked up and down the crowd, thanking people for coming.”
After waving goodbye and getting back into the car, Harry asked William to “come have dinner.”
“I mentioned maybe staying the night, as I’d done before his wedding,” Harry recalled. “He’d come for dinner, he said, but he wouldn’t be able to stay.” At that, Harry pleaded with his older brother, who replied: “Sorry, Harold. Can’t. Kids.”
The next day, on May 19, 2018, Harry married Meghan at St. George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, with William by his side—not as his best man—at the ceremony.
Harry thought getting married might bring him and William closer
Multiple times in Spare Harry recalled thinking how once he’d left single life behind, he and William might become closer, like they were as children. One such occasion was Harry’s bachelor party.
Dressing like a “giant yellow feathered chicken” brought him back to their days as kids. “How had we drifted so far from the closeness of those days?” he asked himself as he “flashed back to those long-ago weekends.”
“Maybe, I thought, we can still recapture it. Now that I’m to be married,” he wrote. Weeks later, shortly after Harry and Meghan’s wedding, they had an unsuccessful “clear the air” meeting with the Prince and Princess of Wales.
