Meghan’s claim during her interview with Oprah Winfrey that she and Harry “got married” ahead of their wedding was hotly contested by British media.
After the couple’s wedding certificate was provided by the General Register Office this week to confirm they were married on 19 May, a spokesperson for the couple has offered a clarification.
“The couple exchanged personal vows a few days before their official/legal wedding on May 19,” the spokesperson said.
Meghan’s claim that the pair got married before their lavish wedding was one of a string of revelations that shocked viewers when the Winfrey interview aired on 7 March.
“You know, three days before our wedding, we got married,” Meghan told Winfrey. “No one knows that.”
“We called the Archbishop and just said, look, this thing, this spectacle is for the world, but we want our union between us, so the vows that we have framed in our room are just the two of us in our backyard with the Archbishop of Canterbury.”
Stephen Borton, the official who drew up the marriage licence for the Duke and Duchess, came out to The Sun this week to say that Meghan was “clearly misinformed” over the legality of their private ceremony.
“They did not marry three days earlier in front of the Archbishop of Canterbury,” he said.
“The Special Licence I helped draw up enabled them to marry at St George’s Chapel in Windsor and what happened there on 19 May 2018 and was seen by millions around the world was the official wedding as recognised by the Church of England and the law.
“What I suspect they did was exchange some simple vows they had perhaps written themselves, and which is fashionable, and said that in front of the Archbishop — or, and more likely, it was a simple rehearsal.”
Ouch.
Harry and Meghan’s shock TV claim that they married three days before their official ceremony has been exposed as a sham — by their own wedding certificate.
📰 via @TheSun pic.twitter.com/A5XKb5N1Aq
— Marianna Baroli 💥 (@mariannabrl) March 22, 2021
