It’s a big day for the world as Prince Harry and Meghan Markle will be exchanging the wedding vows at the iconic St. George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle today. The couple will be tying the knot months after announcing their engagement to the world.
The 36-year-old bride will arrive with her mother, Doria Ragland, and then be walked down the aisle by Harry's father, Prince Charles, to exchange her wedding vows at the altar at 1200 noon local time. The wedding will be telecast live across the world.
Harry and Meghan will be Duke and Duchess of Sussex after their wedding today, Kensington Palace said.
After an hour-long ceremony, which will include hymns and readings, the newly-weds are set to take a tour of Windsor city centre in a traditional open-top Ascot landau horse-drawn carriage.
On the eve of their wedding, Prince Harry, 33, came out to mingle with the crowds in Windsor and told then he was feeling "relaxed".
Markle said she was feeling "wonderful" as she arrived with her mother at Cliveden Hotel near the wedding venue. Her mother is the only member of her family to attend the wedding after Markle announced earlier in the week that "sadly" her father, Thomas Markle, would not be walking her down the aisle due to health reasons.
As many as 100,000 people are expected to line the streets of Windsor, around 41 kms from London, hoping to catch a glimpse of the happy couple. A total of 2,640 people are expected to be among the invited guests within the castle grounds. Four Indian women from Myna Mahila Foundation, the Mumbai charity chosen by the royal couple among six others as beneficiaries of donations in lieu of wedding presents, dressed in their brightly-coloured saris will be among this group.
Bollywood actress Priyanka Chopra, a close friedn of Meghan, will also be present at the wedding.
Around 30 members of the royal family including Queen Elizabeth II, 92, and the 96-year-old Duke of Edinburgh, who is well enough to attend after undergoing a recent hip operation, will be part of the formal wedding party.
According to the official order of ceremony between "His Royal Highness Prince Henry of Wales and Ms Meghan Markle", the couple will pledge themselves to one another, saying: "For better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part."
Harry, the sixth in line to the British throne, will pledge to love, comfort, honour and protect his former actress bride as they become husband and wife.
Markle, a divorcee, has chosen not to read out the archaic part of the wedding vows about wanting to "obey" her husband and Prince Harry has chosen to have a wedding ring.
The ceremony will be officiated by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, with the service broadcast to millions across the world.
"There's profound affection between them which is wonderful and a deep understanding and mutual support," he said.
Markle has 10 bridesmaids and pageboys, all under the age of eight, including Harry's nephew and niece Prince George and Princess Charlotte, the children of Prince William and Kate Middleton.
The Most Rev Bishop Michael Curry, the 27th presiding bishop and primate of the Episcopal Church, from Chicago, will give an address at the wedding and the Rt Rev David Conner, Dean of Windsor, will conduct the service.
As a representative of Harry's late mother's side of the family, Lady Jane Fellowes, the sister of Diana, Princess of Wales, will give a reading.
(With PTI Inputs)
