Royal Wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle

Submission 8,860

Overview

The Royal Wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markel took place on May 19th, 2018 in St. George's Chapel at Windsor Castle in the United Kingdom. More than 29 million people in the United States watched the marriage of Prince Harry of Sussex, the third in the line of succession in the British monarchy, and American actor Meghan Markel.

Background

On November 27th, 2017, Prince Harry announced that he was engaged to American actor Meghan Markel.

Less than one year later, on May 19th, the pair were married at St. George's Chapel, Windsor Castle in England.

Developments

More than 29 million people in the United States watched the Royal Wedding on television.^[1]

Online Reaction

The wedding inspired a series of memes based on the outfits and photographs of the Royal family.

Prince George's Suit

That day, man commented on the outfit of Prince George, the nephew of Prince Harry and the son of Prince William. Twitter ^[2] user @Eve_Barlow tweeted the picture with the caption, "i see prince george has discovered my chemical romance" and received more than 3,200 retweets and 15,000 likes in two days (shown below, left). Twitter^[3] user @MarcSnetiker joked that Prince George resembled the Harry Potter character Draco Malfoy and wrote, "My father will hear about this Potter," received more than 2,100 retweets and 13,000 likes in two days. Twitter^[4] user @youngvulgarian tweeted the image the caption, "WHEN I WAS A YOUNG BOY." The tweet (shown below, right) received more than 4,200 retweets and 19,000 likes in two days.

Meghan Markel in the Car

Many shared and captioned the image of Meghan Markel and Prince Harry in their car leaving the event. Twitter^[5] user @justsaynotojoe tweeted an image of Markel looking at a camera and a wrote, "Me when one of my zany schemes finally pays off:" The post (shown below) received more than 13,500 retweets and 104,000 likes in two days.

Another photograph of Prince Harry waving and Megan Markel looking up with her hand on her chest and mouth open was shared by numerous users. This series of side-by-side images joked about what Markel was looking at in the photograph (examples below).

BBC Crowd Size Tweet

That day, the BBC 3 television channel Twitter^[6] account published a picture of the crowd size at the Royal Wedding side-by-side with an image of the crowd at the Inauguration of Donald Trump. They added the caption, "just saying ¯\(ツ)/¯" The post (shown below) received more than 77,000 retweets and 239,000 likes in two days. Twitter

It Could've Been Me

Image of Prince Harry's former significant other, Chelsy Davy, at the wedding also became the subject of many jokes. Twitter user @MrDetailed tweeted the image with the caption "This is exactly the reason why you don't invite an EX to your wedding.
🤣😂 #RoyalWedding #ChelsyDavy." The post (shown below, left) received more than 140 retweets and 400 likes in two days. Twitter^[7] user @Ndle_Nkosi posted the picture and wrote (shown below, center), "We need to prepare ourselves for #ChelsyDavy's memoir: #ItCouldHaveBeenMe #RoyalWedding." Twitter^[8] user @KiannaBanana tweeted (shown below, right) an image and wrote, "Here she is!!!! In all her Saltness! PURE DAGGERS 🗡🗡🗡🗡 #RoyalWeddding #RoyalSaltiness #ChelsyDavy #WhyNotMe #ItShouldHaveBeenMeee."

Outtake Video

On May 19th, the YouTube account BlendTV posted a video entitled "Outtake Royal wedding * BlendTV." In the video, the editing manipulates the action of the wedding to make it appear as though the priest continually made errors during the ceremony. The post (shown below) received more than 94,000 views in two days.

Princess Diana Conspiracy Theory

On May 20th, 2018, Redditor ^[9] NotASilver posted in the /r/OutOfTheLoop subreddit. They wrote, "I'm seeing a few memes about the queen looking at the new wife and thinking about plotting a car crash to kill her. Is this about Diana and if so what are the conspiracies because im confused." The post received more than 4,200 points (88% upvoted) and 720 comments in 24 hours.

Redditor Hiding_behind_you responded, "Clearly none of this is substantiated, but the conspiracy theories are linked to the idea that Diana was in an affair with the Egyptian Dodi Al-Fayad (this is all from memory, BTW, so spellings and names might not be accurate, it's been a while) and that she was possibly pregnant, and the suggestion that The Royal Family couldn't have a half-Egyptian/half English bastard-child within the family, therefore she was killed off."

Media Coverage

Virtually all media outlets covered the Royal Wedding and the reaction to the event, including CNN, Harper's Bazaar,^[10] BBC,^[11] Vanity Fair,^[12] The New York Times^[13] and more.