Maybe the Eighth Anniversary Gift Theme Is ‘Never-Before-Seen-Wedding-Photo Dump’

Eight years ago, on a beautiful spring day, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry got married at Windsor Castle. Queen Elizabeth was still alive; the British tabloid press hadn’t totally turned against Meghan yet (likely because they were preoccupied with her chaotic, estranged father); and the full reality of marrying into one of the most famous, messed-up, and famously messed-up families in the world hadn’t yet hit the new duchess of Sussex.

It was a star-studded event, but there clearly were some airtight NDAs and Faraday bags for the guests, because there were virtually no personal photos posted, particularly not of the reception (where Idris Elba DJed!) and/or afterparty. 

That all changed this week—Tuesday, to be exact—when the woman who now goes by Megan Sussex posted 24 never-before-seen photos of their big day, taken by “the wonderful Chris Allerton,” across two carousel posts on Instagram. It’s impossible to deny how happy and in love the couple looks. 

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A post shared by Meghan, Duchess of Sussex (@meghan)

And of course they’ve gotten a bunch of media attention; People’s glowing headlines marking the couple’s anniversary fill up more than a full page of Google search results. Other outlets were less straightforwardly positive: The Times of London, a respectable if conservative-leaning newspaper, published a story headlined, “What these new pictures tell us about Harry’s state of mind.” Town & Country asked, “Do Meghan Markle’s Wedding Anniversary Pictures Send a Message to King Charles?”

I personally write off that sort of tea-leaf-reading about Meghan and Harry because people are famously weird about Meghan on either end of the spectrum (I’m sure the comments here will illustrate that point well), but I suspect some of the tonally off headlines comes from this huge cache of photos dropped kind of out of nowhere. Sure, it’s their anniversary, but not a particularly big one. They’ve never posted photo drops like this before; the last time we got this much of the Sussex family archive was in their juicy Netflix documentary, which dropped in December 2022. And nothing about these photos suggests an eighth-anniversary theme, which according to The Knot, is traditionally pottery/bronze or linen/lace from a more modern perspective. (That being said, Meghan also posted her gift from Harry: a nearly life sized bronze statue of two penguins, a sweet reference to a cheesy theme they had at their engagement party.) Maybe they’re just celebrating making it past the seven-year itch?

One of my theories is that some sort of behind-the-scenes finagling has been completed (maybe a lawsuit’s been settled—the couple is famously litigious—or maybe photo rights have been signed over to them?) allowing them to post the photos. Or, most cynically, maybe Meghan knew just how much earned media these shots would get, and is hoping the attention can drive purchases from her As Ever product line. (It does, as you may have suspected, sell a candle “inspired by the ease and joy of a day that holds Meghan’s most cherished memories—her wedding day, May 19th”). According to a Page Six source, she’s the main breadwinner for the couple’s life right now (which costs roughly $6 million per year) and “money is tight.”

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