The 33-year-old royal will tie the knot with actress Meghan Markle, 36, on 19 May and he has asked his two former long-term loves, Chelsy Davy and Cressida Bonas, to attend the ceremony.

A source told the Daily Mail: “Harry has stayed good friends with Davy and Bonas, so they will be there. He made sure there were no hard feelings when they split up. I don’t think Meghan will mind.”

Harry dated Davy, 32, for seven years, while his relationship with Bonas, 29, ended after two years.

However, Markle’s former husband Trevor Engelson has not been invited as the film producer is currently working on a TV show about a divorcee who marries into the Royal Family.

Meanwhile, Harry previously revealed he knew Markle was ‘the one’ the “very first time” they met.

The 33-year-old royal – who was romantically linked to singers Mollie King and Ellie Goulding, actress Jenna Coleman and presenter Caroline Flack – proposed to the Suits actress in November after 16 months together and he’s revealed they shared an instant connection.

Speaking to reporters at a photocall in the grounds of London’s Kensington Palace, Harry was asked when he knew Markle was the one and said: “From the very first time we met.”

The prince said he was “thrilled” and “over the moon” with the news, while Markle gushed she was “so happy” as she showed off her stunning three-stone diamond ring and held onto her new fiance’s arm.

The couple posed for pictures just a few hours after their engagement was formally announced by Harry’s father, Prince Charles.

An official statement read: “His Royal Highness, the Prince of Wales, is delighted to announce the engagement of Prince Harry to Ms. Meghan Markle.

“The wedding will take place in Spring 2018. Further details about the wedding day will be announced in due course.”

“His Royal Highness and Ms. Markle became engaged in London earlier this month.

“Prince Harry has informed The Queen and other close members of The Royal Family.

“Prince Harry has also sought and received the blessing of Ms. Markle’s parents.

“The couple will live in Nottingham Cottage at Kensington Palace.

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Source: Eyewitness News

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The couple confirmed their engagement last month and said the ceremony would take place at St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle.

The Royal Family will pay for the wedding, including the service, music, flowers and reception.

Kensington Palace has confirmed the couple will be spending Christmas together at Sandringham with the Queen.

Twitter post by @KensingtonRoyal: His Royal Highness Prince Henry of Wales and Ms. Meghan Markle will marry on 19th May 2018.

Today’s announcement follows earlier confirmation of the month of the wedding and its location at St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle.

The wedding will be on the same day as the FA Cup final, which Prince William normally attends in his role as FA president.

The prince and Ms Markle, 36, carried out their first official engagement in Nottingham on 1 December.

Ms Markle, a Protestant, will be baptised into the Church of England and confirmed before the wedding.

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Source: BBC

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The former US president, who has forged a burgeoning friendship with the prince in recent years, wished the newly engaged couple a “lifetime of joy and happiness” together.

Prince Harry’s engagement to Markle, who rose to fame for playing ambitious paralegal on popular US show Suits, was announced on Monday. The couple will marry next spring and live at Nottingham Cottage at Kensington Palace in London.

“Michelle and I are delighted to congratulate Prince Harry and Meghan Markle on their engagement,” Obama said on Twitter. “We wish you a lifetime of joy and happiness together.”

President Trump has yet to comment on the news despite the fact Markle is set to become the first American to be bequeathed with the title of Her Royal Highness (HRH).

Markle is the first American to become engaged to a British royal since Edward VIII – one of the shortest reigning monarchs in British history who proposed to American socialite Wallis Simpson.

The engagement prompted a constitutional crisis and officials opposed the marriage because Wallis was divorced. After it became clear it would be impossible for him to marry the socialite and remain on the throne he abdicated in 1936. He married Simpson in France in June 1937 and although she became the Duchess of Windsor she was never given the title of HRH.

Instead of congratulating Prince Harry and Markle, President Trump, whom Markle has been a vocal critic of, spent the day venting his frustrations about US networks that he accused of falsifying news reports about him.

The world leader tweeted: “We should have a contest as to which of the Networks, plus CNN and not including Fox, is the most dishonest, corrupt and/or distorted in its political coverage of your favourite President (me). They are all bad. Winner to receive the FAKE NEWS TROPHY!”

Disparaging comments Markle made about Mr Trump are expected to receive renewed attention in the wake of their engagement. While members of the royal family are of course forced to remain impartial due to age-old protocol, in a 2016 interview – long before she was engaged to Prince Harry – the humanitarian and gender equality campaigner called the president a divisive misogynist.

“Yes of course Trump is divisive. Think about just female voters alone,” the 36-year-old actor said on The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore. “I think it was in 2012, the Republican Party lost the female vote by 12 points. That’s a huge number and with as misogynistic as Trump is and so vocal about it, that’s a huge chunk of it.”

“You’re not just voting for a woman if it’s Hillary because she’s a woman, but certainly because Trump has made it easy to see that you don’t really want that kind of world that he’s painting.”

While it is considered unlikely President Trump will be invited to the royal wedding – which has yet to have a date or venue fixed – the Obamas are expected to be bestowed with a coveted invitation.

The 33-year-old prince, who is fifth in line to the throne, and Obama have become friends over the years. Last month, they surprised onlookers after they appeared in the wheelchair basketball arena at the Invictus Games together. In May, they met at Kensington Palace where they discussed mental health and the Manchester bombing which had taken place just days before.

Prince Harry has also fostered a friendship with Michelle Obama – the pair teamed up for a surprise visit to a school in Chicago’s South Side which is a stone’s throw from the soon to be Obama Presidential Centre earlier this month.

Prince Harry has reportedly been critical of President Trump in private. In February, a source who is said to be close to the royal told US Weekly, the Prince “is not a fan” of the former reality TV star. They also said: “Harry thinks the president is a serious threat to human rights”.

A second source claimed the royal has “often been vocal” about his feelings towards Mr Trump since the Republican announced his presidential bid in 2015.

A palace spokesperson declined to comment on the matter to The Independent at the time, saying: “By long-standing convention, we never comment on reports from unnamed sources of purported private conversations involving members of the royal family.”

In a statement on Monday, Prince Harry said he was ”delighted to announce“ the engagement and had gained the blessing of Markle’s parents.

“His Royal Highness and Ms Markle became engaged in London earlier this month. Prince Harry has informed Her Majesty The Queen and other close members of his family. Prince Harry has also sought and received the blessing of Ms Markle’s parents,” read a statement from Clarence House.

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By:independent.co.uk

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The prince, fifth in line to the throne, will marry Ms Markle next spring and will live at Nottingham Cottage at Kensington Palace in London.

The couple, who have been dating since 2016, got engaged earlier this month.

In a statement, Prince Harry said he was “delighted to announce” the engagement and had received the blessing of Ms Markle’s parents.

Only the Queen and “other close members of his family” initially knew of the engagement, which took place in London.

The announcement, issued by Clarence House, the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall’s official residence, said details about the wedding day would be “announced in due course”.

The prince and Ms Markle made their first public appearance as a couple this September.

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Source: BBC

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Having considered giving up his title, he finally decided he should remain and “work out a role for myself”.

Speaking to the Mail on Sunday, the prince – who is fifth in line to the throne – said being in the Army was “the best escape I’ve ever had”.

And he said the royals “don’t want to be just a bunch of celebrities but instead use our role for good”.
Harry, 32, spent 10 years in the Army, serving twice in Afghanistan.

He had to leave when his presence there was revealed by the press in 2007.

“I felt very resentful. Being in the Army was the best escape I’ve ever had. I felt as though I was really achieving something.

“I have a deep understanding of all sorts of people from different backgrounds and felt I was part of a team.”
He has since been closely involved with charity work, including supporting wounded veterans and mental health groups.

“We are incredibly passionate with our charities and they have been chosen because they are on the path shown to me by our mother,” he said.

“I love charity stuff and meeting people.”

Last week Newsweek magazine published an interview with the prince in which he said no one in the Royal Family wanted the throne.

“We are not doing this for ourselves but for the greater good of the people,” he said.

“Is there any one of the Royal Family who wants to be king or queen? I don’t think so, but we will carry out our duties at the right time.”

Harry has also said he has thought about the future direction of the Royal Family.

“We want to make sure the monarchy lasts and are passionate about what it stands for.

“But it can’t go on as it has done under the Queen.

There will be changes and pressure to get them right.

“Things are moving so fast, especially because of social media, so we are involved in modernising the monarchy.”

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Source: BBC

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In an interview with the Daily Telegraph, he said it was not until his late 20s that he processed the grief – after two years of “total chaos” and coming close to a “complete breakdown”.

But he was in a “good place” because of the “process I have been through”.

Harry, 32, also said boxing had “saved” him by helping him let out aggression.

The Telegraph says Prince Harry had decided to talk about his past in the hope it would encourage people to break the stigma surrounding mental health issues.

Along with his brother and sister-in-law, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, he is promoting the Heads Together mental health campaign, the London Marathon’s charity of the year.

Speaking to the paper’s Bryony Gordon, Prince Harry said: “I can safely say that losing my mum at the age of 12, and therefore shutting down all of my emotions for the last 20 years, has had a quite serious effect on not only my personal life but my work as well.”

He added: “I have probably been very close to a complete breakdown on numerous occasions when all sorts of grief and all sorts of lies and misconceptions and everything are coming to you from every angle.”

‘Head in the sand’

The Princess of Wales died in a car crash in Paris in August 1997.

Prince Harry said: “My way of dealing with it was sticking my head in the sand, refusing to ever think about my mum, because why would that help?”

“(I thought) it’s only going to make you sad, it’s not going to bring her back. So from an emotional side, I was like ‘right, don’t ever let your emotions be part of anything.'”

He described himself as a “typical 20, 25, 28-year-old running around going ‘life is great’, or ‘life is fine’ and that was exactly it.

“And then [I] started to have a few conversations and actually all of a sudden, all of this grief that I have never processed started to come to the forefront and I was like, there is actually a lot of stuff here that I need to deal with.”

He said he decided to act after his brother – the Duke of Cambridge – told him: “Look, you really need to deal with this. It is not normal to think that nothing has affected you.”

Prince Harry opened up to the Telegraph’s Bryony Gordon over a cup of tea at Kensington Palace during a half-hour interview recorded for a podcast on mental health issues.

Gordon, who has previously spoken of her own struggles with bulimia, alcoholism and an obsessive compulsive disorder, said the pair had been alone in the room.

She said it had been unusual to hear a royal talk for half an hour on any subject.

“He’s really articulate and a sound guy. I was quite amazed when he talked candidly and openly about it,” she said.

“He spoke about how he had to have counselling and how his life had been chaos. He said ‘I didn’t have a problem, I was a problem’, and his brother had tried to intervene and he’d ignored him until quite recently.”

Prince Harry said: “Some of the best people or easiest people to speak to is a shrink or whoever – the Americans call them shrinks – someone you have never met before.

“You sit down on the sofa and say ‘listen, I don’t actually need your advice. Can you just listen’. And you just let it all rip.”

Asked whether he had counselling, he said: “I’ve done that a couple of times, more than a couple of times, but it’s great.”

But he said he could “safely say” his concerns were not related to his service as a soldier in Afghanistan.

On taking up boxing, Prince Harry told the paper: “Everyone was saying boxing is good for you and it’s a really good way of letting out aggression.

“And that really saved me because I was on the verge of punching someone.”

Prince Harry said: “Because of the process I have been through over the past two-and-a-half years, I’ve now been able to take my work seriously, been able to take my private life seriously as well, and been able to put blood, sweat and tears into the things that really make a difference and things that I think will make a difference to everybody else.”

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Source: BBC

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The statement said the couple were “a few months into a relationship” and it was “not right” that Ms Markle should be subjected to such treatment.

It said the prince rarely took formal action over “fictional stories”.

“But the past week has seen a line crossed,” it added.

In recent days a number of newspapers have carried front page stories about the 35-year-old actress, best known for playing Rachel Zane in the TV drama Suits.

‘Substantial bribes’

The statement issued by the prince’s communications secretary said: “His girlfriend, Meghan Markle, has been subject to a wave of abuse and harassment.

“Some of this has been very public – the smear on the front page of a national newspaper; the racial undertones of comment pieces; and the outright sexism and racism of social media trolls and web article comments.

“Some of it has been hidden from the public – the nightly legal battles to keep defamatory stories out of papers; her mother having to struggle past photographers in order to get to her front door; the attempts of reporters and photographers to gain illegal entry to her home and the calls to police that followed; the substantial bribes offered by papers to her ex-boyfriend; the bombardment of nearly every friend, co-worker, and loved one in her life.”

The 32-year-old prince has long had an uneasy relationship with the press, having grown up aware of the impact that intense media intrusion had on the life of his late mother, Diana, Princess of Wales.

When he was 20, he was caught up in a scuffle with a paparazzi photographer outside a London nightclub.

In 2012, naked photographs of him in a Las Vegas hotel room were published online and on newspaper front pages, prompting a complaint to the Press Complaints Commission.

But he has also attracted positive coverage of his charitable interests and military service

By Peter Hunt, BBC royal correspondent

This is a cride coeur from a prince whose view of the media was formed after his mother died in a car crash as paparazzi photographers were pursuing her.

Prince Harry has long argued that the line between his public and his personal life has become almost non-existent.

The fifth in line to the throne is now using the media he at times despises to focus on what he says is the plight of his current girlfriend.

It’s a path followed in the past by his brother when Kate Middleton (as she was then) was the subject of intense interest.

But Prince William’s appeals were never quite so passionate or quite so detailed.

And in going public, Prince Harry has confirmed his relationship of a few months with Meghan Markle.

There’ll be those in Buckingham Palace who’ll appreciate his pain, but who’ll question the wisdom of issuing this statement.

Prince Harry is appealing to the better judgement of newspaper editors and their readers.

BBC royal correspondent Nicholas Witchell said editors in the UK might abide by the prince’s requests but it was unlikely to have an impact on foreign publishers as there was a considerable financial interest in pursuing stories about the relationship.

Our correspondent said the statement appeared to be a “cry from the heart” and showed how clearly Prince Harry was determined to protect this relationship after previous girlfriends had endured similar media attention.

In 2014, the Press Complaints Commission became involved again when Prince Harry and his then girlfriend Cressida Bonas complained the paper had published two photographs of them at the Royal Albert Hall that intruded into their privacy.

‘Statement unprecedented’

The statement said Prince Harry was worried about Ms Markle’s safety and that he “is deeply disappointed that he has not been able to protect her”.

It added: “It is not right that a few months into a relationship with him that Ms Markle should be subjected to such a storm.

“He knows commentators will say this is ‘the price she has to pay’ and that ‘this is all part of the game’. He strongly disagrees. This is not a game – it is her life and his.”

The statement ended with Prince Harry appealing for “those in the press who have been driving this story [to] pause and reflect before any further damage is done”.

Camilla Tominey, the royal editor of the Sunday Express, said Prince Harry’s statement was “unprecedented” and appeared to have been as much prompted by coverage on the internet as in the press.

“There is Fleet Street and then there is the internet,” she told the BBC.

“There are no editors to be held accountable, they publish what they like and you get commentary, not just from journalists but from members of the public laying into this girl, writing some hateful stuff.”

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Source: BBC

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