Meghan and Harry ‘legal wedding’ was at Windsor not in ‘backyard’ ceremony, confirms Archbishop of Canterbury
Welby said he did meet with the couple prior to the wedding but won’t ‘say what happened at any other meetings’
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Your support makes all the difference.The Archbishop of Canterbury has spoken out on the claims made during Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s Oprah interview that the couple had undertaken a secret “backyard” wedding ceremony prior to the official date.
The Duchess said that three days before the official wedding on Saturday 19 May 2018 at St George’s Chapel in Windsor, the pair shared vows in a ceremony “just the two of us”.
Meghan said: “You know, three days before our wedding, we got married.
“No one knows that. But we called the Archbishop, and we just said, ‘Look, this thing, this spectacle is for the world, but we want our union between us’.
“So, like, the vows that we have framed in our room are just the two of us in our backyard with the Archbishop of Canterbury.”
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With no witnesses and it not being an officially licensed wedding venue, it had been suggested that the gathering was likely an informal exchange.
Now, speaking to the Italian newspaper la Repubblica, Archbishop Justin Welby has confirmed that the couple did not have a legal wedding.
The Archbishop of Canterbury said: “The legal wedding was on the Saturday. I signed the wedding certificate, which is a legal document, and I would have committed a serious criminal offence if I signed it knowing it was false.”
Welby did confirm that he had multiple meetings with the couple before their official wedding day, but as a priest, said he would keep their contents private.
He said: “If any of you ever talk to a priest, you expect them to keep that talk confidential.
“It doesn’t matter who I’m talking to. I had a number of private and pastoral meetings with the duke and duchess before the wedding.”
The Oprah interview prompted the former chief clerk at the Faculty Office and the person who issued their official license, Stephen Borton, to speak up saying they were “clearly misinformed”.
He told The Sun newspaper: “They did not marry three days earlier in front of the Archbishop of Canterbury.
“The Special Licence I helped draw up enabled them to marry at St George’s Chapel in Windsor and what happened there on 19 May 2018 and was seen by millions around the world was the official wedding as recognised by the Church of England and the law.
“What I suspect they did was exchange some simple vows they had perhaps written themselves, and which is fashionable, and said that in front of the archbishop or, and more likely, it was a simple rehearsal.”
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