Meghan’s Four-Word Response to Prince Charles’ Offer to Walk Her Down the Aisle

Just before her May 2018 wedding to Prince Harry, Meghan Markle found out her father, Thomas Markle, would not be attending and, therefore, couldn’t walk her down the aisle as planned. Her soon-to-be father-in-law Prince Charles stepped in and offered to walk her down the aisle. But, in a new book, royal author Robert Hardman reveals Meghan’s exact response to the Prince of Wales’ offer, which he says showed she was “confident and independent.”

In a response to his offer that caught Charles off guard, Meghan replied with four words: “Can we meet halfway?”

The response “was an indicator that this was no blushing bride, but a confident, independent woman determined to make a grand entrance on her own,” Hardman says, via the Mirror.

Hardman’s newest book, The Queen of Our Times: The Life of Elizabeth II, details the Markle family drama surrounding the wedding. Ultimately, Meghan’s mother, Doria, was the only member of Meghan’s family in attendance and “the dynamics of her [Meghan’s] family certainly eclipsed the usual criticisms about the royal family being dysfunctional,” Hardman says.

Less than two years later, Harry and Meghan infamously stepped back as working royals in January 2020. Some around Buckingham Palace expected the Sussexes would return, but Hardman says in his book, Her Majesty knew they wouldn’t for one pivotal reason.

“She told a visitor she did not expect them to resume royal life,” the Mirror reports. “When asked about a future return for the couple, she replied: ‘Of course not. They took the dogs.’”