Ariel Gordon
It looks like Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s romance was truly written in the stars. In Harry’s record memoir, Spare, he reveals a touching detail about his first interactions with Markle. According to the Duke, he started talking to his bride-to-be on Princess Diana’s birthday.
The sweet way the Sussexes met
In the book, Harry went into detail about those early days of his relationship with Markle. Apparently Harry saw an Instagram photo of a mutual friend and Markle. Intrigued, Harry asked the friend for the then actress’ contact details.
Harry later realized that this first in a long line of dominoes fell on July 1, 2016, which would have been his mother’s 55th birthday. Harry didn’t say it was a sign outright, but hey, it definitely was a sign.
“Eventually we exchanged phone numbers and toned down the text conversation, late into the night,” Harry wrote of the momentous day of Spare. The Duke remembers “texting like a teenager” in his first conversations with Markle.
“It dawned on me how strange, surreal, bizarre, that this marathon conversation should have started on July 1, 2016. My mother’s fifty-fifth birthday.”
As we know, those phone conversations eventually led to an actual date. “We met for a drink and then I thought very quickly about what we said, ‘Well, what are we doing tomorrow? We should meet again. Meghan recalled, via People.
Things moved quickly for the pair
Harry and Markle managed to keep their relationship a secret for the first few months. During their first interview with the BBCHarry revealed that after just two dates, he invited Markle on a secluded getaway to Botswana.
“I managed to persuade her to come and join me in Botswana… We camped together under the stars, she came to join me for five days there which was absolutely fantastic,” the Duke explained. In November, Harry publicly confirmed that they were dating, and the rest is history.
However, Harry has spoken about keeping his mother with him in his relationship with Markle. He actually designed Markle’s engagement ring to include gemstones from her mother’s personal jewelry. Then, of course, they named their daughter, Lilibet Diana, after the late Princess of Wales.
Earlier this month, Harry said People that his mother is his “guardian angel”. In recent years, the duke notes, he has only grown closer to Diana. “The healing process has allowed me to come to a place where I now feel my mother’s presence more than ever before. She is with me all the time.