Meghan and Harry celebrating their ‘sugar’ wedding anniversary – but how sweet are they right now?

Meghan and Harry were cheered by adoring crowds at their fairytale wedding (Picture: Rex)

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle celebrate their sixth anniversary today with the royal pomp and ceremony of their wedding day seeming a distant memory.  

The couple have celebrated many milestones since tying the knot, including the births of their two children, but have drifted ever further apart from Buckingham Palace.  

As they mark the day of their lavish Windsor Castle wedding, a gaping chasm remains between the media personalities and their British in-laws.

A sixth wedding anniversary is known as ‘sugar’ — the traditional gift for the sweet occasion — but their well publicised rifts with the Palace fold continue to cloud their profile.  

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have been described as standing at a crossroads about the direction they take next in trying to forge out lives independent of their royal antecedents.

In the wake of ‘Megxit’, they made a full-time move to the US, where they now live in Montecito, California, with their son Archie Mountbatten-Windsor, five, and daughter, Lilibet Diana Mountbatten-Windsor, two.    

While visits to the UK have been fraught, they have sought to build up an international profile, including on a three-day trip to Nigeria last week.  

The couple looked relaxed in public outings on the royal-style tour to mark 10 years of the prince’s Invictus Games, which the host country joined for the first time in 2023. They also undertook the trip to champion their Archewell Foundation’s mental health initiatives.  

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry in Lagos, Nigeria (Picture: Kola Sulaimon/AFP)

Harry and Meghan attend a polo fundraiser in Lagos (Picture: Reuters)

Meghan looked thrilled as she spoke at an event on women in leadership in the country’s capital, Abuja, where she said it was ‘flattering’ to find out via a genealogy test that she is 43% Nigerian. 

The trip came on the heels of the duchess launching her American Riviera Orchard brand, which promotes home specialities including jam, and the couple’s new royal-style Sussex.com website.

Royal commentator Richard Fitzwilliams said: ‘I haven’t seen any signs of strain in the couple’s relationship, but I do think they are at a crossroads in terms of building their profiles and brand.

‘They have had a successful trip to Nigeria and they might expand on that, as they want their brand to be worldwide. In 2021, Time magazine listed them among the 100 most influential people in the world but they have been more characterised in the recent period by attacks on the royal family, which is something they can’t continue for obvious reasons. 

‘Meghan has American Riveriera Orchard and cooking and entertainment interests, while Harry has got his own philanthropic interests, such as the Invictus Games, but they do tend to spring surprises on us.

‘All I can say is that Nigeria, and they have also been to Jamaica on a shorter trip, is an interesting pointer to what could be coming.  

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex in Lagos on their Nigeria tour (Picture: Reuters)

‘These are some tantalising tidbits they have thrown our way, but whether they live up to A-list status is a completely different matter. 

‘Jam isn’t exactly A-list and, when it comes down to it, without being members of the royal family they wouldn’t be anything substantial.’

The couple tied the knot in a moving and romantic ceremony at St George’s Chapel on Saturday May 19, 2018.  

Meghan was walked down the aisle by the then Prince Charles before the newylweds were cheered by crowds tens of thousands deep on a trip around Windsor in a horse-drawn carriage. 

The royal couple wave from the Ascot Landau Carriage during their procession in Windsor on May 19, 2018 (Picture: Aaron Chown/Pool/AFP)

Harry would later say in their Netflix docu-series that his wife ‘sacrificed everything she ever knew, the freedom that she had, to join me in my world’. Soon after, the prince said, ‘I ended up sacrificing everything that I know to join her in her world’. 

But the memory of the day has soured with claims that Kate Middleton made Meghan cry and a rift between the prince and his brother William.

Harry, 39, and Meghan, 42, officially stepped back from their royal duties on March 31, 2020, a break which has been dubbed ‘Megxit’, after announcing the move just over a year earlier.  

They have taken on a slew of media, social activism and philanthropic roles while also presiding over a series of controversies as they have taken aim at the Palace over issues such as race, ‘unconscious bias’ and revealed intimate aspects of their previous royal lives.  

The couple showed a united front during the ‘nuclear’ Oprah Winfrey interview in March 2021, where Meghan said ‘concerns’ were raised about Archie’s skin colour before he was born.

The Sussexes at the Dusseldorf Invictus Games on September 13, 2023 (Picture: Patrick van Katwijk/Getty Images)

More bombshells came almost a year later with the publication of the duke’s best-selling memoir, Spare.

Harry made a number of explosive claims in the book, including elaborating on their comments during the Oprah chat that the Princess of Wales made Meghan cry in the run-up to the wedding during a row over the size of Princess Charlotte’s flower girl dress.

The Duchess of Cambridge came the next day with flowers and an apology card, according to the prince.  

After King Charles revealed his cancer diagnosis in February, they have remained at a distance, with the prince and his dad reportedly only meeting up for 45 minutes when the latter visited London later in the month.

The duke returned alone to London at the start of May for an Invictus Games church event but did not meet either the king or his brother before returning to the US. His team said in a statement that a meeting was not possible due to the king’s ‘packed programme’. 

‘It’s sad, things have gone very badly wrong with Harry not seeing his father,’ Fitzwilliams said. ‘It seems to me that relations between the Sussexes and Buckingham Palace couldn’t get much worse.’  

The couple’s endeavours away from the UK fold include Meghan launching her American Riviera Orchard home lifestyle brand.  

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry walk hand-in-hand at an Invictus Games promotional event in Canada (Picture: Getty)

Jellies, spreads and preserves, along with beauty products such as soap and body oils, are among the specialities on offer.

Prince Harry also continues to maintain a high profile, including in promoting the Invictus Games, his biennial event for injured and sick military personnel and veterans, scheduled for Vancouver Whistler in 2025.  

Away from the cameras, the prince has indicated that he sees himself as a protector of his family in the face of ‘hate’ aimed at them.  

As they mark their anniversary today, it’s unlikely any of the British royals who shared their day six years ago will be present.

For all of their flashbulb bursts of activity across the world, the breakaway couple need each other’s sugar more than ever. 

MORE : Four years on from ‘Megxit’: What happens next for Harry and Meghan?

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