Surprise! Harry and Meghan were already married during grand royal wedding

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's nuptials on May 19, 2018, was one of the most popular wedding ceremonies. It was attended by approximately 600 esteemed guests, with 1,200 members of the public waiting outside the venue, and hundreds of millions of people tuning in from all across the world through television. However, the couple recently revealed that they were already married at the time of the grand royal wedding.

In their recent interview with Oprah Winfrey, Harry and Meghan shared that they first tied the knot in a secret ceremony on May 16, 2018, three days before they were married in the public eye. Despite having all eyes on themselves in the run-up to the grand wedding, they managed to keep their private wedding secret as it didn't have any guests, reports Royal Central.

Apart from the bride and the groom, the only person present at the wedding was Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury. The "Suits" alum recalled to Oprah that she phoned the Archbishop saying: "Look, this thing, this spectacle is for the world, but we want our union between us."

"So the vows that we have framed in our room are just the two of us in our backyard with the Archbishop of Canterbury," the Duchess of Sussex further revealed, while Harry added: "Just the three of us."

The couple repeated their vows in front of Queen Elizabeth II and other attendees at St. George's Chapel at Windsor Castle three days later. The overall cost of the wedding, which was paid by the royal family, was expected to be around £32 million. The security costs were estimated to be between £2 million and £4 million. It was predicted that the wedding would trigger a tourism boom and boost the economy by up to £500 million.

Months before the wedding, Meghan was baptised and confirmed into the Church of England by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Her divorce didn't prove to be a complication like prior royal weddings since the Anglican Church started permitting marriage to divorced persons with a living former spouse in 2002. The couple's traditional Anglican wedding ceremony, which marked the entry of the first person of mixed-race heritage into the royal family in known history, was also applauded for the inclusion of African American culture.