OPINION: Being left off the guest list for a family wedding is awkward enough – being left off a royal one is another matter entirely.

Harriet Sperling arrives for royal wedding to Peter Phillips

If there is one person who will have felt the sting of being left off Peter Phillips and Harriet Sperling’s wedding guest list, it is Meghan Markle – and frankly, it is not difficult to see why. While Prince Harry, 41, and Meghan, 44 have missed plenty of royal events over the years, this feels entirely different.

It wasn’t a state funeral. It wasn’t a Coronation. It wasn’t one of those grand royal occasions where invitations are dictated as much by duty as they are by personal relationships. This was a wedding. A family wedding – and that is exactly why it matters.

For all the talk of royal rifts over the past six years, Harry attended Prince Philip’s funeral. Harry and Meghan attended Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral. The relationship may have been hanging together by a thread, but there was still a thread.

Now? That thread appears to have snapped.

Meghan Markle left ‘embarrassed’ after royal wedding exposes the truth (Image: Getty )

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle last jointly returned to the UK in 2022 (Image: Getty)

Family weddings are different. You invite the people you want beside you when you celebrate one of the biggest days of your life. You invite the people you feel close to.

Perhaps more awkwardly, you do not invite the people who bare no meaningful purpose in your life. That is why this feels less like a scheduling issue and more like a statement – a very public statement.

And it is one that Meghan can hardly have enjoyed reading. After all, she was once being welcomed into Britain’s most famous family. The world watched as she walked down the aisle at Windsor Castle. Millions tuned in. Hollywood stars filled the pews. The future looked limitless.

Fast forward a few years and the picture could hardly look more different. The Royal Family gathered together for another wedding, and the Sussexes were nowhere to be seen.

If I were Meghan, I would find that deeply embarrassing.

xx (Image: Getty)

Let’s be fair – Peter Phillips’ wedding didn’t carry the global significance of Prince William and Princess Catherine’s wedding. But the fact that it was a relatively private family affair only makes the absence more glaring, because private events reveal what public occasions often hide.

They reveal who is in. And who is out.

The uncomfortable reality for Meghan is that this moment shines a spotlight on just how far removed she and Harry now appear from royal life.

After Oprah, Netflix, Spare, podcasts and interviews, the public have grown tired of their moans and groans. And, increasingly, it feels as though the Sussexes are running out of cards to play.

That may sound harsh, but it is difficult to ignore. For years, Harry and Meghan positioned themselves as the alternative royal brand. The modern royal brand. The global royal brand.

But there is one problem with that strategy. To remain an alternative to something, that something still needs to matter. And despite everything that has happened, the monarchy remains the story.

The institution remains the headline. The Royal Family remains the global fascination – which leaves Harry and Meghan in an increasingly awkward position.

The further they move away from the monarchy, the harder it becomes to maintain the relevance that the monarchy helped create in the first place.

The irony is almost comical… A couple who spent years distancing themselves from royal life still seem unable to escape its shadow.

Meanwhile, the Royal Family appears increasingly comfortable carrying on without them. That, more than anything else, is what this wedding exposed.

Meghan and Harry tied the knot back in 2018, two years before the quit royal life (Image: Getty)

It does not display anger. Not drama. Not some explosive family showdown. It highlight something potentially far worse – Indifference.

The wedding went ahead. The guests arrived. The photographs emerged. The celebrations unfolded. Life carried on.

And Harry and Meghan were simply absent from the picture.

For Meghan, that may be the hardest truth of all, because being criticised is one thing – but being ignored is quite another. if this wedding proved anything, it is that the distance between the Sussexes and the Royal Family no longer looks temporary, it’s permanent.

SOURCE: https://www.express.co.uk/news/royal/2213908/Meghan-Markle-royal-wedding-Prince-Harry-latest