Who walked Meghan Markle down the aisle at her wedding…

Who walked Meghan Markle down the aisle at her wedding to Prince Harry?

Netflix documentary series Harry & Meghan has given fans of the royal couple a look into aspects of their lives they will never have seen before.

In the first three episodes of the docuseries, the couple opened up about the early stages of their relationship, how they struggled to deal with the royal family's relationship with the national press and the issues they faced during the run-up to their 2018 royal wedding.

Speculation around whether Meghan's family would be going to the lavish Windsor ceremony was rife at the time. Mr Markle did not attend the couple’s royal wedding, with Meghan saying at the time that he needed to focus on his health.

Now, Meghan has opened up about how she found out her father Thomas Markle pulled out of attending her celebration.

In the days before the wedding, Mr Markle was caught staging paparazzi photographs. Meghan explained: “The week before our wedding we get a call from our joint communications secretary who said this story is going to come out tomorrow saying your father has been staging pictures and taking money from the press. That was the first I was hearing of it.”

Meghan said her father denied the allegations to her but refused to be flown to the UK a day early for the wedding in order to get away from the paparazzi. “It felt really cagey," she said about the ordeal, "I said ‘it doesn’t make sense’. And when we hung up I looked at H, I was like ‘I don’t know why but I don’t believe him’.”

She said journalists were following him "all day, every day" and he wouldn’t pick up her calls. Mr Markle later issued a public statement through US website TMZ that he had gone to hospital because he had had a heart attack. Commenting on the revelation, Meghan said: "I’m finding out that you’re not coming to our wedding through a tabloid?.”

Meghan said she and Harry attempted to call her father more than 20 times to understand what was happening but that he never came back to them. She said that finally they received a text which said: “I’ve done nothing to hurt you Meghan or anyone else. I know nothing about 20 phone calls I’m sorry my heart attack is any inconvenience for you”.

Meghan explained that she did not believe it was really her father as it was the “opposite” of how he would typically text and that he had never addressed her as Meghan in her life. Harry described the situation as "incredibly sad", adding: "She had a father before this and now she doesn’t have a father."

Meghan Markle and her bridal party walk down the aisle before she is met by Harry's father Charles (Danny Lawson/PA Wire)

Mr Markle had been due to walk his daughter down the aisle, but his decision not to attend the wedding resulted in a change of plan. Meghan decided to begin her walk down the aisle alone, followed by her six bridesmaids and four pageboys, before being joined by Harry's father Charles, the then Prince of Wales, for the final few steps.

Harry later revealed that Charles said yes without hesitation when asked to perform the duty. In an interview for a BBC documentary about Charles’ 70th birthday year, Harry said: “I asked him to and I think he knew it was coming, and he immediately said ‘yes, of course, I’ll do whatever Meghan needs and I’m here to support you’. For him that’s a fantastic opportunity to step up and be that support, and you know he’s our father so of course he’s gonna be there for us.”

In an interview in April this year, ahead of the Queen's jubilee, Mr Markle said he wanted to thank the King for walking his daughter down the aisle. Speaking to GB News from his home in Rosarito, Mexico, Mr Markle said: "I would like to meet with Prince Charles and thank him for walking my daughter down the aisle, and also to meet and talk with him because I think we have a lot in common now. We’ve pretty much both been ghosted by our children.”

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