Yahoo News Royal wedding 2018 reception: Moment Prince Harry drives Meghan Markle to glamorous dinner in classic Jaguar
Newlyweds Prince Harry and Meghan Markle looked the picture of love as they left Windsor Castle for the next stage of their wedding celebrations in a classic Jaguar car.
The royal couple travelled in a silver blue electric-powered Jaguar E-Type to meet close friends and family at an intimate evening reception at Frogmore House.
Harry, who drove Meghan through the Windsor Great Park in the early evening sunshine, was dressed in black tie.
Royal bride Meghan had changed into a second dress - a bespoke lily white high neck gown designed by Stella McCartney - for the glamorous event.
Meghan's hair was in a relaxed up do, and she tucked loose strands behind her ears amid the breeze as they headed to the venue.
The car's number plate bore the date of the wedding - E190518.
Kensington Palace revealed in a statement that the vehicle was originally manufactured in 1968, and has since been converted to electric power.
After delighting crowds with a passionate kiss on the top of the West Steps, the royal couple headed to a daytime reception with 600 guests to mark their nuptials.
Now the bride and groom will continue the festivities at an evening reception at Frogmore House, hosted by the Prince of Wales.
Just family and the closest friends of the couple are expected to attend the intimate affair, which will take place in the 17th-century property within the Home Park, an area of private parkland within the Windsor estate.
It follows an extraordinary day that marked a new chapter in the history of the royal family.
The couple pledged to spend the rest of their lives together in a beautiful service, with adoring fans watching across the globe.
Harry had wiped away a tear during the ceremony, which combined the traditional with the quiet revolutionary as the modernisation of the royal family reached a new stage.
The groom had appeared visibly nervous as he sat alongside his best man and older brother William in the run-up to the arrival of the bride for her induction into the royal family.
On her entrance to the chapel, Meghan stunned a global audience of millions in an elegant Givenchy dress designed by Brit Clare Waight Keller.
The dress featured a five metre-long veil embroidered with flowers from each of the 53 Commonwealth nations. Meghan also wore the glittering Queen Mary's Diamond Bandeau tiara, loaned to her by the Queen.
She walked herself up the steps to the chapel - with help from her two pageboys - before being greeted by Prince Charles who walked her down the aisle. Her father, Thomas Markle, who was due to walk her to the altar, was absent after undergoing a heart operation in Mexico this week, and her mother Doria Ragland looked on from the chapel’s pews.
As they met at the altar, Harry told his wife-to-be “You look amazing, just gorgeous”, and the couple beamed at one another in front of a 600-strong audience.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, then proclaimed Harry and Meghan husband and wife after they said their vows and exchanged rings. Their personalised vows did not include a promise from Meghan to “obey” her husband, as has been traditional in previous royal weddings.
The couple then shared a kiss on the steps of the chapel before being whisked away in a horse-drawn carriage for a procession in front of adoring fans.
Meghan immediately looked at home in her new role, waving to the tens of thousands of royal enthusiasts who lined Long Walk outside Windsor Castle after the ceremony.
The thirty members of the royal family present included Harry’s grandmother the Queen, in a lime green outfit, and the Duke of Edinburgh, who walked unaided at the age of 96.
Aside from the bride and groom, another undisputed star of the show was African-American bishop the Most Reverend Michael Curry, who brought a dose of energy to the proceedings with an emphatic sermon entitled The Power of Love.
As Meghan, 36, looked on laughing and clearly enjoying the speech, other members of the audience including Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, appeared slightly more bewildered.
Among the other guests at the ceremony were US chat show queen Oprah Winfrey, tennis champion Serena Williams, actor George Clooney and his barrister wife Amal Clooney, Sir Elton John and David and Victoria Beckham and actor Idris Elba.
Sir Elton, who sang at the funeral service for Harry's mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, later performed at a lunchtime reception which followed the ceremony.
Her Royal Highness the Queen hosted the daytime event at St George's Hall for the newlyweds and wedding service congregation.
One guest said people were moved to tears by the "mini-concert".
Suhani Jalota, the founder of the India-based Myna Mahila charity, said: "He was incredible. It became like a mini-concert in the reception area. It was great."
But she said she was not sure which songs the star sang.
She described speeches by the Prince of Wales and Harry as "lovely", saying: "Some people were even crying. I think it was just a very, really nice atmosphere to be in where everybody felt really loved."
She added: "Essentially it was just about how Harry was as a child and growing up. And now just about the couple and how beautiful they are together. So I think it was just about their personalities and how they gel really well together."
Of Harry's speech she added: "He was talking about his wife and you know everybody was clapping because it was the first time he was using that term for Meghan so it was really nice."
Harry and Meghan – now formally known as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex – met in July 2016 after being introduced through mutual friends in London.
The man who is credited with introducing Meghan to Harry, 33, is Canadian Markus Anderson, one of her close friends and a consultant for private members club Soho House – of which the prince is a member.
In October that year, the romance became public knowledge after newspapers got wind of the fledgling relationship.
The next month, Harry took the unusual step of releasing a strongly-worded statement confirming the couple’s relationship and criticising the “storm” around their romance.
A year later, and just 18 months after they met, the couple announced their engagement following a whirlwind romance.
Ms Markle has been married before. She wed first husband film producer Trevor Engelson in 2011 but they divorced less than two years later.
Harry has previously told how he had proposed to his future bride at his Nottingham Cottage residence in the grounds of Kensington Palace as they roasted a chicken to eat for dinner
Meghan, who made her name starring in the hit TV show Suits, was born in 1981 in California and named Rachel by her white father, Thomas, and African-American mother Doria Ragland, 61. Ms Ragland had tea with the Queen on the eve of the wedding.
But the run-up to Saturday’s wedding was plagued by uncertainty over whether Meghan’s 73-year-old father Thomas would attend amid health problems. On Thursday, she told of her sadness as it was confirmed he could not make the journey from his home in Mexico following heart surgery.
Harry, too, would have been thinking of his mother Diana on the day of the ceremony after her death when he was just 12 years old. Diana’s sister, Lady Jane Fellowes, gave a poignant reading during the service.
But the celebrations brought to life a royal wedding like no other, as 1,200 members of the public were invited to Windsor Castle to join the celebrations.
Instead of heading off on their honeymoon, the couple will shortly carry out their first joint engagement as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex on Tuesday when they attend a Buckingham Palace garden party to celebrate Prince Charles’ upcoming 70th birthday.
Botswana tops the list of potential honeymoon destinations after the couple celebrated Meghan’s 36th birthday there last August and the stone in her engagement ring came from the African country. Namibia is also being tipped as another possible destination.
