What should the world’s most private celebrity couple do to mark their eighth wedding anniversary? Hide under a rock, silently toast each other with fine champagne while snuggled under a blanket – or under a blanket media blackout, at the very least?
Maybe they could bask on the Out Of Reach Beach, take a hike in the Solitude Mountains, trek along the Quality Time Alone Trail?
Or – here’s a bold idea – why not go crazy and post dozens of previously unseen photographs of your incredibly private 2018 wedding for the delectation of millions of nosey parkers like me instead?
Yes, you are right. That same wedding where the bride and groom strictly enforced a ‘no cameras’ policy, with guests required to hand over their phones and cameras to ensure Meghan and Harry enjoyed the total privacy they have demanded and exacted from everyone except themselves since day one.
For we all know that when it comes to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, privacy is a highly prized territory which they often choose to invade themselves on behalf of themselves for the benefit of themselves.
They do this when the occasion suits, when the going is tough, when there is mercantile advantage to be had in slyly reminding everyone just how special and royal they are.
And what better exemplar than that £32million Windsor Castle wedding watched by a global audience of hundreds of millions in which – we now learn – Elton John entertained the 600 guests by playing the piano with a carpet tile on his head. Eight years is known as the bronze wedding anniversary but how I fervently wish it were brass, to honour the metallurgical composition of Meghan’s neck.
The duchess decided to celebrate this happy event by audaciously posting dozens of images of before and after wedding scenes on to her Instagram account.
This is one of the snaps shared by Harry and Meghan of their £32million Windsor Castle wedding which was watched by a global audience of hundreds of millions
The duchess decided to celebrate her anniversary by posting two albums of images of before and after wedding scenes on her Instagram account
It seemed a remarkable development for a woman who so desperately cleaves to the shadows unless she has a scented candle or a spaghetti recipe to sell, but what can I say except that I am here for her?
What joy! Never in the history of staid Windsordom has there been such a candid peek behind the velvet rope of a major royal event. Princess Anne grilling sausages at Balmoral or Queen Elizabeth taking tea with Paddington Bear have got absolutely nothing on a squiffy-looking Prince Harry and an ecstatic Meghan suction-kissing like a pair of randy squids at the Frogmore House evening reception.
Elsewhere there are shots of the couple enjoying some privacy in the vicinity of St George’s Chapel immediately after the ceremony; there are images of the private afternoon wedding reception, with Meghan giving her new husband that special Tweety Pie, saucer-eyed gaze she learned on the first year of her starlet acting course at Big Ham College, Hollywood.
Along with intimate shots of the glamorous twosome sharing their first dance as a married couple, there is also more recent, down-home footage of Harry presenting Meghan with an anniversary cake and Meghan giving Harry a statue of two penguins to symbolise their love.
Perhaps not strictly because he exhibits quite a few penguin characteristics – flightless, thick, blubber, take your pick – but apparently because they once dressed up as penguins for a fancy dress party.
Why has Meghan done all this? Do the wedding images capture the rapture of the day or a raptor at play?
Perhaps it is because all the Sussexes have left to sell is themselves.
The good-hearted among us might conclude that Meghan just wanted to share the joy of a happy couple clearly relishing one of the best days of their lives.
The good-hearted among us might conclude that Meghan just wanted to share the joy of a happy couple clearly relishing one of the best days of their lives
Harry and Meghan once dressed up in penguin onesies for a fancy dress party
More cynical types might see the release of these photographs, which will be republished by newspapers around the world, as yet another crafty marketing strike, designed to remind possible commercial partners, streaming companies and jam jar manufacturers of the seam of pure, old English gold that runs deep in the Sussex mine; they are royal, and don’t you ever forget it.
Some of the images are indeed happy and glorious, for we were all back in the land of enchantment then, with no idea of what lay ahead. Back then MegWorld was new and Harry looked happy. We didn’t know about the bridesmaids’ tights fights, the Incident With The Dog Bowl In The Night, the meltdown when Kate didn’t want to lend Meghan her lip gloss.
We didn’t know that in less than two years the Sussexes would be gone, in four years Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip would be gone in a different way and a royal rift would peel open, perhaps never to be closed.
Every picture tells a story, but these ones are most telling in what they omit rather than what they contain. For there is no father of the bride here, no room to pay tribute to tragic, one-legged Thomas Markle. There is no best man Prince William, no bridesmaids and only a grudging back view of the then Prince Charles.
If the aim of this puzzling, uncharacteristic, wholly invasive picture dump is to underline Harry and Meghan’s beatific partnership, it only does so by emphasising the vacuum at the heart of their lives. The lack of family harmony and unity is wordlessly laid bare – but perhaps that is what it was all meant to do.
This is all about Harry and Meghan, their wedding and marriage, the self-perusal of their dreams and destinies in a world where neither dust nor scores are ever settled. On this peculiar stage, these leading figures say they despise the limelight but creep into its useful glow whenever it suits.
So, Happy Anniversary to the One and Only, as they say to each other.
