For those of you who, for some reason, haven't been keeping up with the royal wedding, I have some big news: It's finally happening. This weekend, Meghan Markle gets her own fairytale-style happily ever after as she ties the knot with Prince Harry. But, before they were the world's most sought after newlyweds-to-be, they were just another couple dating. If you're wondering how Prince Harry and Meghan Markle fell in love, we've finally got some backstory.
While it seems like we know pretty much everything there is to know about the couple's wedding plans, there isn't much information out there regarding their courtship before they got engaged. That is, until now. In a recent interview with Good Morning America, Markle's longtime friend, Janina Gavanker shared some inside juicy deets on how the couple first fell in love.
Gavanker and Markle became friends almost 15 years ago when they were both trying to make it in Hollywood. "When I met her, she was so effervescent and talented and clearly brilliant," she said of Meghan. "She's just such a magnetic person."
Despite the fact that the majority of their friendship has been long-distance, the two have found a way to stay in touch. "We have this thing that we call the 'State of the Union' addresses with each other," she explained. So, how does a State of the Union address work, you ask? Well, according to Gavanker, the longtime friends "sit on FaceTime or Skype or whatever we have available and we talk for hours, mostly about things that are intensely important to us."
If you're wondering what Markle is like as a pal, Gavanker describes her as "hilarious" and "incredibly blunt." Also, despite the fact that she's possibly one of the most gorgeous people on the face of the Earth, her friend describes her as "incredibly low maintenance."
So now let's get to the juicy deets. How did Harry and Meghan fall in deep, everlasting love?
"Harry invited Meghan to Botswana and it was very obvious for her that she didn't need anything. She could just go and help with the work," Gavanker recalled on the show. "They were staying in a tent with nothing and just had each other."
In fact, her friend believes it was Harry's surprisingly low-key lifestyle that made Meghan fall for him in the first place.
"I remember when Meghan told me about Botswana," she said. "I loved how she was... pleasantly surprised. Like, this boy is actually just doing this for real. This is not some flouncy trip... he really means it."
According to Gavanker, the two have always placed an emphasis on philanthropic work.
"Even with Meghan's crazy schedule as an actor, she's always made time for philanthropic endeavors," Gavanker shared of her friend. "It could be one day helping at a charity event and it could be an entire trip that she's told nobody about to go help people in India."
"One of the things I love about both of them is that they don't tell anyone," she noted. "They just go do good work in countries with nobody watching."
"They fell in love with nothing around them. No frills. No bells and whistles," she added. "All they had was each other, doing good work in a place where nobody was watching them. They did that separately. Imagine what they can do together."
A surprisingly ordinary start for an absolutely extraordinary couple. And, in case you're wondering how pumped Markle is for her upcoming big day, she's over the moon.
"I have never seen her laugh more. She sent me this video of the two of them doing something," she told Good Morning America. "I don't even know what they were doing. But I've never heard this timber in her laugh before."
"They're so happy," she added.
That's right. They're beautiful, they're royal, they're kind, and they're in love!
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