So, um, I don’t know if you know this about me – but I’m someone who is looking for love. Real love. Ridiculous, inconvenient, consuming, can’t-live-without-each-other love.
(While I echo those sentiments, those aren’t exactly my words. That’s a quote from Sex and the City’s Carrie Bradshaw. But they ring 1,000 percent true in my life.)
And while that and my wait to find that love is probably the most obvious thing about me – and the entire reason why I created this blog – you actually might not know this about me: I am also the publisher of another blog, that one about the British Royal Family. I write about the Duchess of Sussex, the woman formerly known as Meghan Markle, almost every single day. And it was difficult for me to not become transfixed with her love story with Prince Harry. Though technically she was married before – marrying for the first time at 30 – when she married Harry, she was 36. Not a young bride, and certainly not a young bride for the British Royal Family. (For comparison’s sake, Diana, Harry’s mom, got married the same month she turned 20 years old in 1981.) I have spoken a few times, albeit cryptically, about my move to Jackson, Mississippi for love and what a failed experiment that was. Ironically, on the afternoon of September 21, 2017, I went to CVS and the Vanity Fair with Meghan on the cover – a gorgeous shot of her, freckles exposed, with the headline proclaiming “She’s Just Wild About Harry!” – caught my eye in the checkout line. I bought the magazine, and within a couple of hours, after moving to Jackson from Birmingham, Alabama and leaving my career, family, friends, home, and life behind, I was being broken up with, and my little world – which I thought was safe and secure – suddenly imploded right in front of me.
As I pulled myself hastily out of the rubble, I thumbed through the magazine one evening. “I can tell you that at the end of the day I think it’s really simple,” Meghan said of her relationship with Harry. “We’re two people who are really happy and in love. We were very quietly dating for about six months before it became news, and I was working during that whole time, and the only thing that changed was people’s perception. Nothing about me changed. I’m still the same person that I am, and I’ve never defined myself by my relationship.”
Four days after my breakup, on September 25, I turned 31. I had chosen to be with the wrong man – to completely uproot my life for him – because I turned 30 and freaked the fuck out. Turning another year older so soon after the breakup pushed me even deeper down into this rabbit hole of “everything should be figured out by now and it’s all wrong that it’s not.” Then I read that article and the words of Meghan – who had turned 36 the month before, in August 2017 – and my perception shifted. Love doesn’t have an age limit or an expiration date. You can find blissful, beautiful love after 31. You can find blissful, beautiful love at any time. But mostly, you find blissful, beautiful love when you are supposed to.
I fell irreversibly in love with Meghan after this article. Her words were a beacon of hope for me. I started doing more research into her – who were her friends? Who was a part of her inner circle? And since then, I've noticed something peculiar. Three of Meghan’s very best friends – actress and singer Priyanka Chopra, tennis legend Serena Williams, and international human rights lawyer Amal Clooney – were all extraordinarily successful in their respective lines of work, feminists, powerful, beautiful, and brides at 36 years old, just like Meghan. They all thought, despite being gorgeous, intelligent, hilarious, ambitious, and influential, that maybe they couldn’t have it all. Maybe just having a rock solid career would have to be enough.
But then, right on time, love found them all by chance. And, aside from the common denominator of all of these women being a.) fucking fantastic and b.) 36 when they married, the other common ground? Their husbands all absolutely, totally, completely adore them. They married their true loves.
But dammit if they didn’t have to wait for it.
***
February 2018. An interview with Filmfare. Priyanka Chopra doesn’t know it yet, but she’s already met her husband. In three months, they’ll be a couple. In five months, they’ll be engaged. And by the close of the year, they’ll be married. But right now…
“I’m a serial monogamist,” she said. “I was in a very committed relationship. But since almost a year, I’ve been single. I’ve met a bunch of people. I’ve gone out with people. I let someone woo me, but no. My mind hasn’t exploded. Not yet.”
Oh, honey. Just you wait.
Priyanka, by early 2018, was an internationally famous actress, singer, film producer, and winner of the Miss World 2000 pageant. From India, Priyanka exploded onto American television screens in 2015 as the star of ABC’s thriller Quantico, becoming the first South Asian to headline an American network drama. In addition to her booming career, she is an outspoken feminist and her foundation, The Priyanka Chopra Foundation for Health and Education, works towards providing support to underprivileged children in those two areas. Ten percent of her earnings go directly towards the Foundation, and she pays for health and medical expenses for 70 children in her home country of India, 50 of whom are girls. She’s one of the most stunningly beautiful women in the world, known for her full lips and her gorgeous legs, which sell 12 brands, she told an interviewer once.
Priyanka met Meghan in 2016 at the annual Elle Women in Television event. Priyanka was starring in Quantico and Meghan in Suits, the series that garnered her the most fame pre-Royalty. Priyanka was a huge fan of Meghan’s show and told her so.
“And you know when you meet someone and you just click – it was just an easy, natural progression,” Meghan later said in an interview with Press Trust of India. “We’ve managed to keep in touch via email and text and try to see each other whenever we’re both in the same town.”
After Meghan’s Vanity Fair cover, Priyanka told Entertainment Tonight that her close friend was so much more than just someone’s girlfriend.
“It would have been nice to write about her, not just her boyfriend,” Priyanka said. “I’m just saying. I mean, she’s an actor, she’s an activist, she’s a philanthropist. I mean, she does so much more…It’s just a little sexist. Look, I’m a feminist and I love boys, okay? The only thing I’m saying is that there needs to be a certain sense of equality where a woman is not just a plus one, you know. It’s nice to be your own identity, too.”
Priyanka – who calls her friend “Megs” – has also said that she always knew Meghan was meant for big things, calling her addition to the British Royal Family “a beautiful step in the right direction” to Harper’s Bazaar Arabia.
The same year Priyanka and Meghan met, Meghan met Harry in early July and, on September 8, 2016, global pop star and heartthrob Nick Jonas – to use a slang term here that I can’t stand – “slid into” Priyanka’s direct messages on Twitter.
“I’m hearing from a few mutual friends that we should meet,” he wrote to her.
Later that day, Priyanka wrote back.
“My team can read this. Why don’t you just text me?”
He got her number.
They texted back and forth in a manner that was “friendly with an eye toward flirtation,” Nick would later say. They didn’t meet face-to-face until February 26, 2017, five months later, at a Vanity Fair Oscars after-party. The moment he finally saw Priyanka face-to-face, clad in a long, black, sequined Michael Kors dress, Nick dropped to one knee.
“You’re real. Where have you been all my life?” he recounted to Vogue.
Priyanka, for her part, only had five minutes to chat; she was due to leave that night on a flight to India. Nick suggested a drink.
“I looked at Anj [Priyanka’s manager, Anjula Acharia] and I said five minutes,” Priyanka told Vogue.
Afterwards, Nick texted he and Priyanka’s mutual friend Graham Rogers – who starred in Quantico with Priyanka and Careful What You Wish For with Nick – and said “Priyanka. Is. Wow.”
“That’s not the way I talk,” he told Vogue.
In early 2017, Ralph Lauren invited both Nick and Priyanka – who were not yet dating – to wear his designs at the famed Met Gala that May, not knowing anything about their months-long text flirtation. The two decided to go together, platonically. A week before the event, they finally sat down together for drinks at the Carlyle in New York City. Afterwards, Priyanka invited Nick to her apartment, where her mother was staying (and, according to Vogue, apparently wearing a nightgown and watching Law & Order, which sounds a whole lot like me so I think Mrs. Chopra is my spirit animal). They didn’t even kiss at the end of the night, the couple told Vogue – Nick gave her a friendly pat on the back.
“She’s still upset about that,” Nick said.
Joe Jonas, Nick’s older brother, recalled watching Nick with Priyanka at the Met on May 1 with Joe’s now-wife, Sophie.
“I think she kind of knocked him off his feet,” Joe said. “He was just this little puppy dog. Sophie and I were just laughing at him. We’re like ‘Look at this little smitten, drunk kid right now. ’”
Yet the two told Bustle that the appearance “was purely platonic.” Priyanka went on Jimmy Kimmel Live! the next week, where the host asked her about the date. “We were both wearing Ralph Lauren, and we decided to go together, and it was fun,” she said, demurring.
It wasn’t for another year until their first date on May 25, 2018.
“We were just friends and our lives were taking us to different places,” Nick said.
For their first date, they attended a Beauty and the Beast live performance together at the Hollywood Bowl. They met before at the Chateau Marmont.
“She walks into the Chateau, and I feel an overwhelming sense of peace and understanding about this next chapter of my life,” he told Vogue.
The next night, they went to a Dodgers baseball game in Los Angeles. The next morning, according to Vogue, Nick called his mom and told her that he was going to marry Priyanka.
On one of those early dates, Priyanka would later say she felt a shift.
“[He said] ‘I love the way you look at the world. I love the drive you have,’” Priyanka said. “As a girl, I’ve never had a guy tell me ‘I like your ambition.’ It’s always been the opposite.”
Originally, Priyanka later said while speaking at Tina Brown’s 10th Annual Women in the World Summit earlier this year, their 10-year age difference – today, she is 37 and he is 27 – got to her.
“I’ve known him for two years,” she said. “I didn’t think that this is what it [would’ve] turned out to be, and that’s maybe my fault. I judged a book by its cover. When I actually started dating Nick, he surprised me so much. He’s such an old soul, extremely smart, so good for me because he grounds me so much. I’m a wild child, I do whatever I want whenever I want and he always supports me.”
During an interview for InStyle, Priyanka touched on the age difference again, saying no one would bat an eye if it were Nick who was the elder of the two.
“People gave us a lot of shit about that and still do,” she said. “I find it really amazing when you flip it and the guy is older. No one cares, and actually people like it.”
In June, the couple flirted on Instagram, and Priyanka met Nick’s family at a family wedding. Later that month, Nick flew to India to meet her family. They went to Brazil. Then on to London. It was a whirlwind month.
Though they had known each other for nearly two years, after only two months of dating, Nick proposed in Crete, Greece’s largest island, in July 2018. It just felt right, he said. Natural. Priyanka thought they were going there for a birthday trip. Nick was thoughtful enough to propose after midnight the day after her birthday, so their engagement would be a separate day so as not to take away from her birthday. He proposed with a Tiffany diamond. For the second time since they’d known each other, Nick dropped to a knee.
“I got down on one knee, again, and I said ‘Will you make me the happiest man in the world and marry me?’” Nick told Vogue. “No joke – she took about 45 seconds. Forty-five seconds of silence.”
Priyanka said she was speechless.
“I’m going to put this ring on your finger now unless you have any objections,” he continued.
The same week of their engagement, they had a double date with Harry and Meghan, who had just married two months prior.
Keeping with their theme of “why wait?” the two went to India in August to kick off their wedding celebrations with a roka ceremony, an Indian tradition where both families join together to celebrate a couple’s engagement prior to a marriage. A Hindi priest said the blessings and Nick’s dad, Kevin Jonas Sr., a pastor, led a prayer. Nick, according to Harper’s Bazaar, led prayers in Sanskrit. After this ceremony, the pair confirmed it publicly – they were engaged. Priyanka told People she didn’t feel right talking about their relationship until there was an engagement.
“This is the first time I was comfortable with being with someone who is such an incredible partner, so it just felt natural,” she said. “And plus, there was a ring on it! I always said that when there’s a ring on it I’ll talk about it, because you’re single until you’re married.”
Priyanka, the aforementioned serial monogamist, told InStyle “I’ve never dated. I’ve always been in relationships,” she said. “Dating as a concept doesn’t really exist in India. The nonanswerability of dating, my god, I don’t know if I would ever be able to. When I know I’ve met the right person to share the rest of my life with, I’ll shout it from the rooftops.”
True to her word, she did just that – but only after firmly establishing herself as her own woman, not just an extension of one of the Jonas Brothers.
“I’ve never been public about my relationships,” she told InStyle back in 2016. “But that was a decision I took when I was very young. Especially in entertainment, because women have such public lives, we always end up being reduced to a plus one or ‘blah blah blah’s’ girlfriend. And I wanted to give myself enough time where I’m able to stand on my own two feet and have my identity as well.”
That Nick allows her to have a thriving career, that he not only accepts it but supports it, is critically important to her, she told Entertainment Tonight.
“I think for anyone in any relationship, it’s really important to find a partner that can support your individual ambition or your individual dreams outside of them and let you do that thing,” she said. “And I think that’s the healthiest relationship.”
While she and Nick were planning their wedding last year, she was also filming the critically acclaimed movie The Sky Is Pink, which was just released. Knowing this, Nick completely took over wedding planning for their lavish affair.
“That’s something we always knew about each other, that our work is very important to us,” Priyanka said on The View recently. “Nick came down 20 days before and he was like ‘I want you to focus on your film and I’m gonna take care of all the prep.’ My mom and him did everything. I just wore my dress and arrived.”
The three-day extravaganza in India last December featured both a Hindu and a Christian ceremony, celebrating both of their faiths. For the Christian ceremony, who better to dress Priyanka than Ralph Lauren, who unknowingly put the two together in his designs for the Met Gala a year and a half earlier. Nick, for his part, rode in on a horse. Lavish is an understatement.
Priyanka, an outspoken feminist, opted to take her husband’s last name, tacking it on to her name and henceforth going by Priyanka Chopra Jonas.
“I always wanted to add his name to mine because I feel like we’re becoming family, and I’m a little traditional and old school like that,” she said. “But I don’t take away my identity. He gets added to who I am.”
Priyanka didn’t begin dating her now husband until she was 35. They got engaged the day after she turned 36, and married five months later. Surely, she at one point wondered if love was in the cards for her.
“I’ve always trusted destiny,” she said.
Now that her wait to find that real, ridiculous, inconvenient, consuming, can’t-live-without-each-other love is over – the kind, as she said, that made her mind explode – she’s focused on her ultimate goal, she told InStyle.
“I want to change the world a little bit,” she said. “My big endgame is creating a formidable career and legacy for myself, but at the same time I want to have moved something. I want my existence to have meant something.”
And, she said, with her true love, the man she waited so long for, that includes children when the time is right.
“I want my kids to turn around and be like ‘Yeah, that was my mom,’” she said.
The next “And the bride was 36” installment will drop in November, and you won’t want to miss it – it’s about the legendary, incomparable Serena Williams.