Meghan is said to have been ‘misinformed’ about her secret wedding with Harry, as the official who issued the certificate revealed. The secret wedding she had claimed she had with Harry during her interview with Oprah, happened three days before their official Royal wedding.
According to reports, Stephen Borton, the former chief clerk at the Faculty Office, said the duchess is ‘obviously confused’ after she told Oprah Winfrey that she and Harry had been wed by the Archbishop of Canterbury in their ‘backyard.’
Meghan had told the US talk show host that they had called Justin Welby and asked him to marry them in private. But Mr Borton said the ceremony described by Meghan in the interview was ‘not valid’ because there were no witnesses and the couple’s home – Nottingham Cottage – was not an authorised venue.
It was more likely the private ceremony was an informal exchange of vows or may have just been a practice for the office service itself, and not a secret wedding, according to Mr Borton. He told The Sun:
‘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.
Meghan made the secret wedding claim for the first time during the CBS interview in which she also accused an unnamed member of the royal family – not the Queen nor the Duke of Edinburgh – of raising concerns about how dark their son Archie’s skin tone would be before he was born.
The duke also said that none of his relatives spoke out in support of Meghan following the racism he said she faced in the media, with the duchess saying she suffered suicidal thoughts in response to the attacks. Buckingham Palace previously said the issues raised in Harry and Meghan’s interview, especially over race, were ‘concerning’ and would be addressed by the Queen and her family privately.