Royal weddings: Expert hits out at 'scandalous' cost for taxpayer

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The royals are currently grappling with the task of restoring their image following Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s Oprah Winfrey interview. For two hours, Meghan, then Harry, revealed a score of secrets and intimate details about their time and fallout with the Firm. Allegations included issues on race and mental health, which members like Prince William – Harry’s brother – have since denied.

While the crises to have hit Meghan and Harry seem to have lasted a lifetime, the pair only met in 2016.

Just two years later they married in a grand event at Windsor Castle.

Names on the guest list included the rich and the famous, several A-list celebrities as well as notable names like Serena Williams.

Both of Harry’s most publicly known girlfriends, Chelsy Davy and Cressida Bonas, were in St George’s Chapel for the wedding ceremony.

However, neither were invited to the evening bash, which was held in Frogmore House on the Windsor estate.

Royal author Katie Nicholl, writing in Vanity Fair in 2018, revealed that the pair were not the only ones to have been marked off the afterparty list.

Some of Harry’s friends had also been left out of plans, according to her report.

A friend of the Duke told Ms Nicholl: “Some of Harry’s pals were a bit surprised not to get the golden ticket to the evening party.

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“There was actually another wedding that weekend that a lot of them were invited to, so they got to have fun in any case.”

The author said that one of the prince’s oldest friends, Astrid Harbord, was also not invited to the evening celebration.

Violet von Westenholz, their matchmaking friend who reportedly started it all, was also absent from the evening.

Neither was old pal James Blunt and his wife in attendance.

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Ms Nicholl continued: “There was also no invite to either the wedding or the reception for Harry’s old party chum Natalie Pinkham.”

The prince has known Sky Sports presenter Ms Pinkham for more than 10 years and they stay in regular touch.

A source told her: “Natalie was a bit surprised not to be there.

“She and Harry still talk so it was a surprise for her not to be invited at all.”

Judi James told podcast ‘Pod Save the Queen’ that Harry had changed considerably after the wedding

She pinpointed subtle signs from both the Duke and Duchess before the Megxit announcement, which came almost two years after their nuptials.

Speaking last year, she said: “I think we saw Harry change so much.

“I could always see the rift between him and William anyway, going back right to the first days of Harry’s marriage, and meeting Meghan.

“He went from being this jack-the-lad character – and we used to see him all the time with William, looking like a couple of jokers!

“If they turned up at weddings – oh, here they come, what are they going to get up to! Particularly Harry.

“And then suddenly, and I think it could have been put down to the fact that he had got responsibilities in life at last, with a wife and then a child.

“But, I think he was looking way too unhappy, way too serious, way too annoyed, really.

“Clearly he had a very, very difficult decision to make.”

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