Rare Royal Privilege Enjoyed By Meghan Markle, Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi Before Marrying Into Family

The royal family follows lots of rules and regulations, both spoken and unspoken, which is why they make headlines when those rules get broken. Two family members were allowed to break that rule before they were actually members of the family. Both Meghan Markle and Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi were allowed to walk to church for the Christmas Day service before they were married to their royal partners. A tradition usually only for those already part of The Firm.

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Markle And Mozzi Were Able To Walk With Family To Church Before Marriage

This doesn’t really sound like a big deal, but it breaks tradition. Typically, the queen invites partners to walk with the royal family once they are married. Kate Middleton and Mike Tindall both made their appearances in 2011, after their spring and summer weddings to royal family members.

However, Markle turned heads in 2017 when she walked to church with the family, in Norfolk, five months before she and Prince Harry were due to tie the knot. The newly-engaged couple walked alongside the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, an appearance that caused the press to dub them the “Fab Four.”

Markle wasn’t the only royal-to-be that enjoyed this privilege. Mozzi, a property developer, proposed to Princess Beatrice in September of 2019. He spent Christmas with the royal family that year and accompanied them to the church service. The two wed in July 2020, after their initial May ceremony was postponed due to the pandemic.

The Royal Family’s Holiday Plans

This year, Queen Elizabeth will spend her first Christmas without her husband by her side. Prince Phillip passed away in April of this year. Buckingham Palace hasn’t made an official statement about the queen’s holiday plans, but it is reported that she will spend Christmas with her family, as usual, at her Norfolk estate, Sandringham.

That will likely not include Harry and Markle, however. Even though an invitation was extended to the couple to join the rest of the family at Sandringham, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex will not be attending.

“There’s a lot that goes into the logistics and the planning of the family Christmas, so of course, staff know that Harry and Meghan are not coming,” a royal source told Page Six. “If they were, they would have communicated it to their family by now. But this is Her Majesty’s first Christmas without her husband, so one would have hoped they would want to be with her.” Harry and Markle are not deliberately snubbing the queen; instead, it’s believed that they want to avoid the headlines and press frenzy that would inevitably accompany their trip.

Last year, the royals celebrated the holidays separately, like so many others across the world. The queen and her husband stayed at Windsor Castle over Christmas, the first time they had done so in 33 years.