Royal wedding: How did Prince Harry and Meghan Markle meet?

Credit: DaytonDailyNews

American actress Meghan Markle and Britain’s Prince Harry are set to wed Saturday, almost two years after a mutual friend set them up on a blind date in London.

Prince Harry told BBC News in November that he had never watched the show Markle is best known for, USA's "Suits," before he met the California-born actress in July 2016.

“I was beautifully surprised when I walked into that room and saw her and there she was sitting there,” Prince Harry said. “I thought, I am really going to have to up my game here.”

Markle told BBC News that, as an American, she knew little about the prince before their first date.

“You know, because I’m from the States, you don’t grow up with the same understanding of the royal family,” Markle said. “While I now understand very clearly there is a global interest there, I didn’t know much about him.”

She told the news network that she had only one question for the friend who set them up.

“I said, ‘Well, is he nice?’ Because if he wasn’t kind, then it didn’t seem like it would make sense,” she said.

The prince told BBC News he convinced Markle to join him in Botswana a few weeks after their first meeting. For five days, the couple camped out under the stars.

"We were really by ourselves, which was crucial to me to make sure we had a chance to get to know each other," Prince Harry told BBC News.

A whirlwind romance followed.

“The fact that I fell in love with Meghan so incredibly quickly was sort of confirmation to me that all the stars were aligned, everything was just perfect,” Prince Harry said. “It was this beautiful woman just sort of literally tripped and fell into my life, I fell into her life.”

Markle and the prince will marry Saturday in St. George’s Chapel at England’s Windsor Castle. The ceremony is scheduled to begin at 7 a.m. EDT.

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