This is the fourth and final installment in the “And the bride was 36” series – one I’ve immensely enjoyed writing. I saved my favorite for last, the love story of the then Meghan Markle – now Duchess of Sussex – and her prince, Harry, the Duke of Sussex. (If you didn’t know, I also publish a second blog, The Duchess Commentary, about Meghan and her duchess counterpart Kate, Duchess of Cambridge. Some of the verbiage, especially about Meghan’s backstory, comes from earlier posts I’ve written about Meghan on TDC.) Meghan is one of four best friends – Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Serena Williams, Amal Clooney, and herself – who all married at the same age, 36, long after they thought love had passed them by. 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.
Click here to see Part 1 about Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Part 2 about Serena Williams, and Part 3 about Amal Clooney. It’s worth noting that, randomly, tons of celebrities get married at 36 – this circle of friends, yes, but also other powerful women like comedian Amy Schumer and Barbara Bush (George W. Bush’s daughter, not his mother). If I’m being honest, I kind of have a feeling that 36 will be the year I get married, too, but we’ll see. It’s not a magic number by any means, but I’m drawn to it, and it feels like these extraordinary women’s stories might be my story, too.
This post marks Worth the Wait’s one-year anniversary – well, almost: We launched on February 13, but close enough. Since then, we’ve told 11 stories about dreams that were delayed but not denied – and there’s more to come as we enter year two. Thank you for being on this journey with me. I hope it has given those of you who are in a waiting season a little hope, as it has me. I created this selfishly because I needed a little hope; I hope, selflessly, it has given you some as well.
It’s nearly Valentine’s Day, a holiday I hate, even when I’m in a committed relationship. When I’m single, it reminds me that I’m single; when I’m in a relationship, it all feels so cheesy and fake, and plus, to me, every day is Valentine’s Day – the way I treat my man on February 14 and the way he treats me should be no different than the way we are to each other on February 15. I celebrate love every day, not just on this stupid holiday.
Meghan Markle was my age (33) on Valentine’s Day 2015. Though supposedly in a relationship with famous chef Cory Vitiello at the time, she wrote a post called “Be Your Own Valentine” on her now defunct blog, The Tig, that sounds an awful lot like she’s single. I’m posting it in full because I love it.
“It’s funny how a Hallmark holiday can bring up so many feelings for people – ebbing and flowing from the lovey dovey to the lonesome. But Valentine’s Day, with its tales of Cupid and swan song of chocolates and roses and saccharine sweetheart candies, does just that. It’s a strangely divisive one. Where couples are cuddled up and singletons see their requisite froyo as a cup of lonely. But it doesn’t need to be.
I think you need to be your own Valentine.
I think you need to cook that beautiful dinner even when it’s just you, wear your favorite outfit, buy yourself some flowers, and celebrate the self-love that often gets muddled when we focus on what we don’t have.
Last season I was chatting with my Suits sister wives, Sarah and Gina, and was in some sort of funk, bemoaning something that was so futile I don’t even remember what it was now. But I was faaaaaar from showing the self-love.
One of them stopped me – truth be told I can’t remember which one because they both impart their sage wisdom with me on the daily – but one of the stylish wise ones stopped me and said,‘Hey! That’s my friend you’re talking about. Be nice to her.’
They were protecting me from myself. From my own criticism, and my own self-doubt. They were reminding me to treat myself as well as I treat those closest to me. To be my own Valentine.
This Valentine’s Day I will be with friends, running amok through the streets of New York, likely imbibing some cocktail that’s oddly pink, and jumping over icy mounds in my new shoes through the salted snowy streets of the West Village.
But those shoes, by the way, were my gift to myself. Because I’ve worked hard, because I’m not going to wait for someone to buy me the things I covet (nor do I want to), and because I want to treat myself as well as I treat those dearest to me. Because I am my own funny Valentine.
So whether you have a special someone, you’ll be with friends, or you’ll be flying solo this Saturday (or any other day for that matter), be good to yourself. Love yourself, treat yourself, honor yourself, and celebrate you. Be your own beautiful, darling, cherished, and funny Valentine. You deserve it.”
The next year, she’d meet the love of her life – but not before enduring a heartbreak from hell.
***
I’ll be honest with you, and this might shock those that know me in real life: I’ve never seen a single episode of Suits, the show Meghan starred on for seven years, the one that was her claim to fame. I had never heard of the actress Meghan Markle until tabloids began buzzing in the fall of 2016 that Prince Harry was dating someone new, and she was American. (I, as a little American girl, had always dreamed of marrying into the British Royal Family, though, if I’m honest, it was always to Prince William, Harry’s older brother.)
I shared the story on the first installment of the “And the bride was 36” series about the first time I discovered Meghan Markle:
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.” … I fell irreversibly in love with Meghan after this article. Her words were a beacon of hope for me.
Meghan and I have many similarities; we also have many differences. But, at our core, we’re both true romantics, and she sold me forever on her in that Vanity Fair piece when she said “Personally, I love a great love story.”
Me too, Megs. Me too.
***
Meghan met Harry over the summer of 2016. Sources conflict as to when exactly, but it was either late June or early July. Only about a month prior to their meeting Meghan – who had been married before, on September 10, 2011, and divorced just under two years later, in August 2013 – had been broken up with unexpectedly that May by the man she, at that time, thought was the love of her life: Cory Vitiello, celebrity chef, restauranteur, and a very popular figure in Toronto, where Meghan had lived for years while filming Suits. Of the two of them in the relationship, Meghan was definitely the less famous of the two; Cory was legendary in Toronto.
Cory and Meghan started dating in 2014, about a year after her divorce from director Trevor Engelson was finalized. Meghan, a shameless foodie, met Cory out on the Toronto bar and restaurant scene, and the attraction was palpable. That same year, in 2014, Meghan took to The Tig and gushed that she was “the happiest” she had ever been, “personally, professionally, wholly.” Friends said a proposal was imminent when, two years into the relationship, Cory broke Meghan’s heart after allegedly learning that Meghan had passed off one of his recipes – pasta with courgette spirals – as her own.
Meghan was devastated. Destroyed. She was to turn 35 that summer and now, after losing the man she thought she’d spend the rest of her life with, her dreams of a marriage built to last and becoming a mother seemed farther away than ever. The clock was ticking. Yes, she was young and beautiful now, but she’d never felt her age more than in that moment. Would love ever find her?
“If you are asking my girlfriends, the best way to get over one guy is to get on another,” she said in an interview that year. “But my mum says, when your heart breaks, it just opens up for more love.”
By the end of that summer, she’d met the one. And this time, there would be no parting.
***
Meghan Markle arrived at the members-only club Soho House in London for her first date with Harry – a blind date set up by a mutual friend – a fully self-actualized woman.
In the summer of 2016 she was nearly 35, divorced, successful in her own right as an actress on the hit television show Suits. In this regard, she couldn’t have possibly been more different than her Duchess counterpart Kate, who met her future husband as a 19-year-old college student. She, unlike Kate, was not what Royal Watchers thought the monarchy wanted: Divorced. Biracial. American. But, it turns out, she’s exactly what the monarchy needed.
Rachel Meghan Markle was born on August 4, 1981 in Los Angeles to Thomas Markle – who worked on television shows such as Married…with Children as a lighting director and director of photography – and Doria Ragland, a former social worker and yoga instructor. Meghan, as she has always been known, was the only child of that marriage, though she has two older half-siblings from her father’s previous marriage, Samantha and Thomas Jr. Meghan’s parents divorced when she was six years old.
Meghan grew up in Hollywood and was educated at private schools, including the famous Little Red Schoolhouse in Hollywood. She first gained national attention at just 11 years old, when, after a successful campaign to get Procter & Gamble to change a national television commercial she regarded as sexist, she was featured on Nick News (does anyone else remember that show? I loved that show!) on Nickelodeon. She attended high school at Immaculate Heart High School, an all-girls Catholic private school in Los Angeles; she was Homecoming Queen there. Then it was on to the prestigious Northwestern University, where she joined Kappa Kappa Gamma, studied abroad in Buenos Aires and Madrid, and got degrees in international studies and theater in 2003.
Meghan then moved back home to L.A. to begin a career as an actress; to support herself, she worked as a freelance calligrapher. Her first on-screen role was on the soap opera General Hospital playing a nurse; she also appeared on CSI: NY and, famously, as a briefcase girl – her number was 24 – on the hit game show Deal or No Deal. She had roles on 90210 and CSI: Miami and small parts in movies such as A Lot Like Love, Remember Me, and Horrible Bosses, but her breakout role was playing Rachel – which is the best name ever as it is also her real first name and my name – on Suits, which she starred in from 2011 until her departure from acting entirely in 2018. While filming Suits, Meghan lived in Toronto and, as a side project, founded the lifestyle website The Tig, where she wrote about food, fashion, beauty, travel, and inspirational women; as a fellow blogger, it makes me love her all the more. I wish I could see The Tig now, because her messaging is one all women need – self-love, positivity, and spirituality. She closed The Tig in April 2017 as it became clear that she and Harry were the real deal; in January 2018, she closed all of her private social media accounts. Little known fact about Meghan: She is a style icon now, but back when she was only known as a semi-famous actress, she released two fashion collections with Canadian clothing company Reitmans in 2015 and 2016, before she met Harry. Both collections quickly sold out.
She dated actor and producer Trevor Engelson from 2004 until their marriage on September 10, 2011 in Ocho Rios, Jamaica; they divorced less than two years later in August 2013, citing irreconcilable differences. Whereas Meghan was blindsided by the Cory breakup, insiders say that she blindsided Trevor when she asked for a divorce.
Suits, which began filming in 2011 in Toronto, took Meghan away from Los Angeles and the life she had known there with Trevor for the past seven years. Perhaps to affirm their dedication and devotion to each other, knowing they’d be living literally in separate countries for the run of the hit TV show, Trevor and Meghan got married. The ceremony was literally the stark opposite of her wedding to Harry in May 2018 – on a beach, laid-back, fueled by rum punch and Red Stripe. They honored Trevor’s Jewish faith by sitting atop chairs during the Hora. Meghan’s wedding dress was not Givenchy; the opposite: Beachy casual, with a bejeweled belt and bare shoulders.
They tried to make it work – constant flights between Los Angeles and Toronto, Skype and FaceTime calls. Then Suits took off, as did Trevor’s career; the two were evolving and changing, as people do, and began to live two totally separate lives. Habits that used to just be who Trevor was – his constant lateness to appointments, his disheveled, unironed, casual look that reflected their low-key wedding – now were a major source of annoyance for Meghan. They just grew apart.
“The problem with the marriage was the distance,” an expert said. “As soon as they got married, she got the gig on Suits and she was in Toronto and he was in L.A. The relationship just didn’t last.”
Then, Cory; she met Harry about six weeks after their breakup on a blind date arranged by a mutual friend at the Soho House. She wore a blue dress, fabric of which was later woven into her wedding dress as her “something blue” when she married Harry.
For his part Harry, who’d had two high-profile long-term relationships with Chelsy Davy and Cressida Bonas – both of whom broke it off with him because they couldn’t handle the pressures of dating a Royal – entered the Soho House feeling as though love had passed him by, as well. He dreaded Sunday nights home alone. He was, quite honestly, miserable, and resigned to the fact that maybe he wouldn’t find true love.
Later, during he and Meghan’s engagement interview, he said of their blind date that he knew she was the one “the very first time we met,” that he fell in love “so incredibly quickly” and that their meeting seemed proof that “the stars were aligned.”
***
During that first date over drinks, they bonded over their shared love of philanthropy. Meghan’s commitment to philanthropy is nothing new since becoming a duchess; she volunteered at soup kitchens in Los Angeles and Toronto, was a counselor for the international charity One Young World – where, at the 2014 summit in Dublin, Ireland, she spoke about gender equality and modern-day slavery – and she volunteered with United Service Organizations (USO), touring Afghanistan and Spain with the organization. A vocal feminist, she also volunteered with the UN’s Women’s Political Participation and Leadership initiative and the humanitarian organization World Vision; after a trip to India on behalf of the latter, she wrote an op-ed published in Time about how women’s periods affect their potential.
“I’ve never wanted to be a lady who lunches,” Meghan wrote on The Tig in 2016. “I’ve always wanted to be a woman who works. And this type of work is what feeds my soul and fuels my purpose.”
Many men would have been scared shitless by Meghan’s feminism, her drive, her ethos; Harry, the right man for her, fell in love with her that night.
“You have to follow your heart to find your true love and I remember when I was in high school and college, we were still reading ‘The Rules,’ do you remember that book? This is very much like that,” Meghan said in an interview promoting her Hallmark movie, Dater's Handbook, in 2016. “All those different things it would say, like, ‘Be a creature unlike any other,’ and it’s really about playing these games. But at the end of the day, when it comes down to finding the person that you’re right for, that’s not the person you’re going to play games with.”
By the end of that first night, they’d made plans for their next date – the next day.
“Very quickly into that [their first date] we said ‘Well, what are we doing tomorrow?’” Meghan said.
The next day, two dates in, Harry took a risk and asked Meghan to join him in Africa.
“I managed to persuade her to come and join me in Botswana and we camped out with each other under the stars,” he told the BBC. “We were really by ourselves, which was crucial to me to make sure that we had a chance to get to know each other.”
The two fell in love in August 2016 on that trip; then, two months of blissful privacy until the headline in The Sunday Express blared on October 31, 2016 that Harry was “besotted” with the American actress. By the end of the year, Harry spoke out against the rampant racism being leveled against his girlfriend in a first-of-its-kind statement; normally brutally private, Harry condemned the press for its treatment of Meghan, and, in the process, confirmed his relationship with her. It was a rare move by a not-yet-engaged Royal.
By January 2017 Meghan had met some of Harry’s family – William, Kate, Charlotte, and Charles – and on May 6, 2017, two years exactly before their son Archie was born, Harry and Meghan appeared at their first public event together, a polo match that Harry was playing in and Meghan was watching. They were caught kissing by a photographer after the match.
In September 2017, Meghan made her first official appearance as “the girlfriend” in Toronto at the Invictus Games, which Harry created and staunchly supports. Then, over roast chicken in their home on the grounds of Kensington Palace, Harry proposed in mid-November 2017; it was announced to the public on November 27, 2017, just 17 months after they’d first met.
“It was just a cozy night,” Meghan told the BBC of the night of their engagement. “What were we doing? We were trying to roast a chicken. It was just an amazing surprise. It was so sweet and natural and very romantic. He got down on one knee – as a matter of fact, I could barely let him finish proposing, like, ‘Can I say yes now?!’”
Meghan’s engagement ring was comprised of diamonds from Harry’s mother Princess Diana’s collection, as well as diamonds sourced from Botswana, where they fell in love.
“The fact that I fell in love with Meghan so incredibly quickly was sort of confirmation to me that all of the stars were aligned, everything was just perfect,” Harry said. “[There] was this beautiful woman, who just sort of literally tripped and fell into my life [and] I fell into her life.”
Six months later, they were married on May 19, 2018 at St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle. The bride was 36 years old. Their first and, so far, only child, Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor, was born on May 6, 2019.
“It’s magic,” Meghan said at the first photo call after giving birth to Archie. “I have the two best guys in the world, so I’m really happy.”
***
A lot has gone down in the eight months since then, including and especially Harry and Meghan’s decision this month to split from full-time Royal Family work. I’ll save that for The Duchess Commentary. But I will say this: Meghan’s entrance into the Royal Family represents so much evolution of the monarchy; the Family is now as accepting as it always should have been. I truly believe each of us has a purpose on this earth, a reason why we are here; likely, Meghan thought her life’s work – as a child growing up in Hollywood – was to be an actress, but, instead, her acting career set her up to meet those that would introduce her to a Prince that would eventually become her husband and catapult her into her real life’s work: Making a difference worldwide on the global stage and serving as a symbol that being “different” is beautiful, that women have a voice, and that being a tough, fierce, opinionated, yet kind woman is the new, modern look of a centuries-old monarchy. She is proof, to me and I’m sure many others, that there are no mistakes in this life, and every step she had to take to get to today – the good and the bad – was intentionally planned for her to be able to shine in her work as Duchess of Sussex, which, now more than ever, the world is going to be watching.
And, though their less than two-year-old marriage has been nothing if not tumultuous, one thing has never wavered: Their love for each other. They married the right person, and both of them will do what they need to do – hell, even divorce themselves from the Royal Family – to avoid divorcing each other. You can say whatever you want about this couple – and, trust me, everyone has – but you cannot deny their deep and steadfast love for one another.
I wrote this the day before Harry and Meghan’s wedding, and it felt appropriate to share here:
I was excited about William and Kate's wedding; with Harry and Meghan, I'm emotionally invested.
Yes, cynics, I've never met Harry nor have I met Meghan; no, I probably never will; hell, I've never even been to the U.K. But hear me out.
Harry and Meghan, to me, represent all of us whose journey to love and happiness is messy as hell but so damn worth it.
Harry was more affected by Diana's death than anyone in the world, save for William, and forced, at 12 years old, to walk behind his mother's coffin while the entire world watched, all because of a life he did not choose. He rebelled, he made public mistakes, but he never settled, and he eventually found himself in global humanitarian efforts that are truly remarkable. And finally, when he wasn't looking at all, here comes this woman who ticked all the boxes that made her not a common Royal bride, and Harry put that rebellious spirit to great use and said to hell with tradition, I love this woman, and I am going to fight for her. And he won. And tomorrow is the culmination of bucking every kind of tradition the monarchy has and choosing what is most important in this life – true love.
Meghan is also a child of divorce like Harry; she's 36 years old (for comparison's sake, when Diana married Charles, she had just turned 20 less than a month prior). She's independent, strong, made her own money, made a name for herself and did global humanitarian work long before she met Harry, is the opposite of a social climber and (sorry Kate, love you) the opposite of "Wait-y Katie," which is what they called Kate pre-engagement to William because, honestly, after graduating from college at St. Andrews she just kind of piddled around and was a professional girlfriend. That is the antithesis of Meghan. She's divorced, she's biracial, she's American – and she's going to change the freaking world. Already has, really. And, again, when she wasn't looking at all, there was true love, in its imperfectly perfect form.
So I guess what I'm saying is Harry and Meghan are all of us imperfect people – people who have lost parents, had familial strain, made mistakes, gone through stages of our lives we aren't super proud of, tried at love and failed, come from broken homes and messy pasts – yet still believe in true love, are willing to wait for it, are good people with good souls who believe in love and even fairytales. That in the end, good can come; that two souls can find each other across the Atlantic Ocean and make a whole damn WORLD believe in love again. In true love again.
So when you ask why I care about tomorrow, it's not just about a dress or a crown or even a wedding – it's about hope. Hope that love can win. Hope that true love exists. And hope that, in the middle of a perfectly imperfect life, we can all find it.
***
Reading back posts from The Tig really is a joy for me, and I hope, in her new life, Meghan picks up writing again in some capacity. Many of her posts center around self-love, which I truly believe one must master before they can adequately love another.
"We just need to be kinder to ourselves,” she said. “If we treated ourselves the way we treated our best friend, can you imagine how much better off we would be? Try to find a space inside of you that reminds yourself that yes, you can have questions and self-doubt, that’s going to come up, that’s human. But at the end of the day, you are enough exactly as you are.”
That same message is reflected in another post on The Tig, one I will leave you with in part as we prepare to celebrate that dumb holiday Valentine’s Day. Whether you are partnered or not, remember these words, from Meghan’s post called “Birthday Suit,” written as she was turning 33 in August 2014:
“My 20s were brutal – a constant battle with myself, judging my weight, my style, my desire to be as cool/as hip/as smart/as ‘whatever’ as everyone else. My teens were even worse – grappling with how to fit in, and what that even meant. My high school had cliques: The black girls and white girls, the Filipino and the Latina girls. Being biracial, I fell somewhere in between. So everyday during lunch, I busied myself with meetings – French club, student body, whatever one could possibly do between noon and 1pm – I was there. Not so that I was more involved, but so that I wouldn’t have to eat alone.
I must have been about 24 when a casting director looked at me during an audition and said ‘You need to know that you’re enough. Less makeup, more Meghan.’
You need to know that you’re enough. A mantra that has now engrained itself so deeply within me that not a day goes by without hearing it chime in my head. That five pounds lost won’t make you happier, that more makeup won’t make you prettier, that the now iconic saying from Jerry Maguire – ‘You complete me’ – frankly, isn’t true. You are complete with or without a partner. You are enough just as you are.
So for my birthday, here’s what I would like as a gift: I want you to be kind to yourself. I want you to challenge yourself. I want you to stop gossiping, to try a food that scares you, to buy a coffee for someone just because, to tell someone you love them…and then to tell yourself right back. I want you to find your happiness.
I did. And it’s never felt so good.
I am enough."
Amen, Meghan. Amen.
Do you have a “delayed but not denied” story for Worth the Wait, year two? E-mail me at rachelelizabethburchfield@gmail.com and tell me more!