It shouldn’t come as too much of a shock to hear that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s Easter will not be spent in the U.K. this year, especially considering they now live across the pond. But it may be somewhat surprising to learn that the couple has actually never celebrated the holiday with the rest of the royal family.
As it turns out, Meghan has never found herself among the rest of the royals at the Easter Sunday service held each year at St. George’s Chapel in Windsor. While her husband made it to some of the services during their relationship, the Duchess of Sussex often had to skip out on the day’s celebrations—but her reasons for missing Easter made a lot of sense.
The Sussexes’ first time missing the holiday was back in 2018 as an engaged couple. Easter happened to fall just a few weeks before their wedding, which took place on May 19, and it appears that both Harry and Meghan opted to skip the public event as they prepared for the big day.
The following year, Meghan was heavily pregnant with her and Harry’s first child when Easter came around. She ended up giving birth to their son, Archie, on May 6, 2019, just a few weeks after the holiday. Understandably, Meghan skipped the service leading up to Archie’s birth, but Harry did take a moment to attend with his brother Prince William and his sister-in-law, Kate Middleton alongside Queen Elizabeth II. At the time, Meghan and Harry lived at Frogmore Cottage, which was not too far from St. George’s Chapel.
As for 2020 onward, Meghan and Harry no longer attended Easter following their decision to step back from their roles as senior working members of the royal family. The couple announced their decision in early 2020. By March of that year, the pair had officially made the move to California from England. Technically, however, the pair didn’t miss out on any planned festivities at the time—as we all know, the COVID-19 pandemic took the world by storm in 2020, and the annual public service at St. George’s was canceled.
“This year, Easter will be different for many of us but by keeping apart, we keep others safe,” Queen Elizabeth II said in a statement at the time. “But Easter isn’t canceled, indeed, we need Easter as much as ever. The discovery of the risen Christ on the first Easter day gave his followers new hope and fresh purpose and we can all take heart from this. We know that coronavirus will not overcome us. As dark as death can be—particularly for those suffering with grief—light and life are greater.”
Interestingly, Meghan and Harry did travel away from home during the spring of 2022—but the annual service at St. George’s wasn’t on their itinerary. Instead, the Sussexes attended the Invictus Games at The Hague in the Netherlands. The games happened to take place at the same time as Easter, meaning the couple couldn’t join the rest of the family for their first in-person Easter in years since the pandemic began.
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