Meghan Markle, the American actress who is the fiancee of Britain’s Prince Harry, joined the Royal Family for church in Sandringham on Christmas Day and was photographed curtseying to the Queen.
GettyMeghan Markle attends Christmas Day Church service at Church of St Mary Magdalene on December 25, 2017 in King’s Lynn, England.
Meghan Markle’s appearance with the Royal Family on Christmas Day was considered a break with tradition because, typically, significant others are not invited until after the wedding. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have announced that they will marry in May 2018. Queen Elizabeth II, her husband, Prince Phillip, Prince Charles and his wife, Camilla, and Prince William and his wife, Catherine, were also at the church services along with other members of the Royal Family.
Princess Beatrice, Princess Eugenie, Princess Anne, Princess Royal, Prince Andrew, Duke of York, Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry attend Christmas Day Church service.
The Queen, who was dressed in orange attire at the church service, had missed the event in 2016 because she was ill with a bad cold. However, she looked in fine form at the 2017 services.
GettyMeghan Markle and Prince Harry on Christmas Day.
The wedding between Prince Harry and Meghan Markle is scheduled for May 19, 2018. The wedding is breaking ground in several ways for the Royal Family because Markle is biracial as well as divorced. She was previously a star on the television series, Suits. In several of the photos at the Christmas Day services, she walked next to the former Kate Middleton, who is pregnant with her third child. She was also photographed giving a curtsy to the queen.
Markle donned a distinctive brown beret style hat for the church services and a camel-colored coat. Cosmopolitan noted that Meghan’s Christmas Day outfit cost more than $10,000.
Meghan Markle with the Royal Family.
Cosmopolitan broke down Meghan’s outfit. “Meghan wore a $1,295 Sentaler calf-length camel coat…She paired with it a $1,550 Chloé bag, as well as $798 brown Stuart Weitzman boots. To top it off, she wore, uh, very expensive ($5,995) diamond earrings.”
GettyPrincess Beatrice, Princess Eugenie, Princess Anne, Princess Royal, Prince Andrew, Duke of York, Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry attend Christmas Day Church service at Church of St Mary Magdalene on December 25, 2017.
Just Jared wrote: “Meghan is wearing a Sentaler long wide collar wrap coat in camel ($1,295), a Chloe Pixie small leather and suede shoulder bag ($1,550), Stuart Weitzman Hiline over the knee boots ($798), and Birks snowflake earrings ($5,995).”
The Queen at Christmas Day services 2017.
According to CNN, Sandringham is “the Queen’s country estate in rural Norfolk, about 100 miles north of London,” and it’s where the Royal Family typically attends Christmas Day church services.
Meghan Markle and Prince Harry with Prince William and The Duchess of Cambridge, the former Kate Middleton.
Not everyone was a fan of Meghan’s hat. Twitter lit up with jokes about the hat, which some thought looked like an…excrement emoji. According to UK Daily Mail, some people felt that the chocolate-colored hat was the one miss in the entire Christmas Day outfit.
Meghan Markle and Prince Harry attend Christmas Day Church service.
The appearance at church services was the first time that Meghan Markle has attended an event with the entire Royal Family.
Meghan Markle and Prince Harry walk behind Prince Phillip.
The Queen positioned an engagement photo of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle in the background during her televised Christmas address, further demonstrating that Markle, an American divorcee, has been welcomed into the Royal Family.
Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, and Meghan Markle.
According to UK Daily Mail, Harry and Meghan were spending Christmas with William and Kate. “Instead of staying up at the ‘big house’ with Her Majesty, the two couples are enjoying a much more low-key family Christmas, along with Prince George and Princess Charlotte, just joining the rest of the royals for Church and lunch on Christmas Day,” the British news site reported.
Meghan Markle with the Royal Family.