King Charles’s coronation is exactly a month away, but it’s still unclear whether or not his son Prince Harry and daughter-in-law Meghan Markle will be in attendance on The Big Day. The short version? It’s still up in the air! The long version? Meghan and Harry’s rep gave the BBC a statement this week and confirmed there is “no update on whether they were attending,” according to the outlet. No-ted!
Apparently, Harry and Meghan’s lack of response despite the April 3 deadline is causing a “headache” for coronation organizers, namely because of planning around things like security, transportation, and seating arrangements. Though Buckingham Palace itself declined to comment on the sitch, an anonymous insider dished to the Daily Mail that the staff was told to prep for arrangements in case the Sussexes do decide to show, adding that “switching things like seating arrangements are fairly easy. But the thing that is causing more of a headache, is the security, cars and other logistical matters. Any plans that mesh with the rest of the family are more important and problematic. There’s clearly a lot going on behind the scenes in terms of talks between members of the family and their offices. But at this stage in proceedings people could just do with some clarity. There are now two plans, one for if they do come and another if they don’t. It’s another layer of responsibility that staff could do without.”
While this all still screams “TBD,” there has been some coronation intel released in recent days. (See: These v festive invites, which confirm that Camilla dropped the “Consort” from her title and will be going by “Queen:” 👀
Explaining the change from Queen Consort to Queen, a palace source told The Times, “It made sense to refer to Her Majesty as the Queen Consort in the early months of His Majesty’s reign, to distinguish from Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.” But now that months have gone by and the coronation is around the corner, it’s “an appropriate time to start using ‘Queen Camilla’ in an official capacity. All former Queen Consorts have been known as ‘Queen’ plus their first name.” Interesting times!