An author has claimed that the late Queen reportedly told a close friend that Prince Harry left her shocked in the run-up to his wedding with Meghan Markle after making one key decision

Prince Harry and Meghan with the late Queen (Image: Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Images)

Prince Harry ‘blew’ his relationship with the late Queen in the lead-up to marrying Meghan Markle after making a major decision, an author has claimed. It has been seven years since Harry and Meghan tied the knot at Windsor Castle in May 2018 in a fairytale wedding attended by the whole of the Royal Family.

The preparations leading up to the nuptials were known to have been fraught with Meghan’s father dropping out of attending at the last minute. But today, a royal author has claimed that a so-called close friend of the late Queen told her that the former monarch was left ‘dismayed’ about some of the arrangements being made for the wedding and had become “very worried” about her ‘weak’ and ‘besotted’ grandson.

Harry and Meghan on their wedding day in 2018 (Image: Getty Images)

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Writing on her Substack, Sally Bedell Smith claims that before her death, Lady Elizabeth Anson, a cousin of Elizabeth II and a high-society party planner, told her behind-the-scenes details about the run-up to the wedding.

She claims that the former monarch had been left shocked that Harry had asked the Archbishop of Canterbury to perform the ceremony without asking the Dean of Windsor first and that the now Duke of Sussex thought his grandmother could just “do what she wants”.

And according to Bedell Smith, Lady Anson said that due to this, Harry had “blown” his relationship with his grandmother. She writes that Lady Anson told her several months before the wedding: “She [the Queen] said she was really upset. I was shocked when the Queen told me this, how she was so saddened. I had no idea about the conversation, that he was rude to her for ten minutes.

She founded the firm Party Planners in 1960 and went on to arrange events for a number of people in the royal houses as well as the Queen. Notable events Lady Shakerley planned include Sting’s wedding, Margaret Thatcher’s 70th birthday party and the Queen’s 80th birthday party.

In 2020, the late Queen made her a Commander of the Royal Victorian Order, which is awarded to those having performed distinguished personal service to the monarch. Just months later she died at the age of 79.

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