Snaps reveal inside Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s star-studded reception

The trailer for the second installment of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle‘s Netflix series offers an inside glimpse of the couple surrounded by loved-ones at their May 2018 wedding.

Footage released by the US streaming giant today shows the Duchess of Sussex singing and a series of unseen photos of the couple dancing at their 2018 wedding with VIPs including pop legend Elton John, a friend of Harry’s late mother Princess Diana.

Other high profile guests dancing with the couple include Idris Elba’s wife Sabrina and actress Priyanka Chopra, as well as Meghan’s close friend Janina Gavankar.

Here FEMAIL reveals the stars who can be spotted in the background of the couple’s lavish wedding snaps.      

MEGHAN’S BFF: MISHA NONOO

In a photograph of the Duchess and Duke dancing with Elton John, a couple can also be seen joining in the fun. 

Dressed in a stylish red dress alongside Meghan is one of her best friends, Misha Nonoo.

The British-Bahraini fashion designer lives in New York and is known for her eponymous clothing line.

Meghan and Misha’s relationship reportedly goes back years, according to the bombshell biography Finding Freedom – co-authored by journalists Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand – which documented their friendship.

It alleges how Markus Anderson, Soho Houses global membership director, provided the royal with introductions to many business and cultural elites – both in Canada and further afield.

The authors wrote, ‘At a Soho House lunch in Miami, he was the one who sat the actress next to Misha, a budding fashion designer with a vivacious personality and impeccable pedigree.

‘The occasion for the December 2014 Miami trip was Art Basel, a decadent art fair that brings the internationally rich and famous for a week of parties and events of all sorts and sizes.

‘Markus invited Meghan, an art lover, to stay at the epicenter of the action, Soho Beach House, to set some sun, see some art, and have some fun.

‘A perfect place to make new friends and connections, the Soho house event saw Misha and Meghan hit it off immediately.’

The biography goes on to suggest Misha and Markus were behind Meghan and Prince Harry’s first meeting.

It’s thought the Duchess’ close pals set the pair, who are now living in the US, up on a blind date in London.

She was one of the attendees at the Royal Wedding , and was a guest at the Duchess of Sussex’s baby shower for Archie.

The Duchess has continued to support her friend by wearing Misha Nonoo styles over the years and donned the famous ‘Boyfriend shirt’ for her first appearance alongside Prince Harry, and also wore another of Misha’s designs for her final day of meetings in the UK before stepping back from royal duties.

Meghan and Harry aren’t the only royals who Misha is close to – Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie among Misha’s close friends. 

Misha has also known Prince Harry for years, as her ex-husband Alexander Gilkes, is rumoured to be one of his friends from Eton. 

OIL TYCOON: MIKEY HEISS 

In the snap alongside Meghan and Elton is Misha’s husband Mikey. 

At the time, the couple were still just dating, with oil tycoon Mikey proposing to Misha in February 2019. 

In a photo posted on social media, he can be seen down on one knee proposing to his future bride on a boat during what appeared to be a romantic getaway to Cabo San Lucas.

They tied the knot at Cinecittà studios, a huge and opulent film set which is the biggest in Europe.

The pair had their first child, Leo, last March, less than a year after the Duke and Duchess welcomed their son Archie in May 2019. 

They went on to welcome a daughter just months after Prince Harry and Meghan had their daughter Lilibet. 

IDRIS ELBA’S WIFE: SABRINA ELBA 

In the background of one of the images from the Netflix trailer is Idris Elba’s wife Sabrina.

She can be seen chatting to other guests on the dancefloor while Meghan and Harry boogie in the centre.

Sabrina’s husband Idris was DJ-ing the event, and has spoken of the ‘pressure’ for the occasion.

During an interview with BBC Radio 1Xtra the 49-year-old shared that ‘Still [D.R.E] by Dr Dre went off!’ after being personally asked by the couple to provide music for their star-studded reception.

The actor explained that ‘it was Megan’s choice’ to play the song, after taking to the decks for the royal occasion.

In a previous interview Idris has explained that the night was a lot of pressure.

He said: ‘That was an incredible experience. I was curating the music for that night, so it was a but of pressure, but it was great. A vibe.’

Another song specifically requested by Meghan was the classic by Whitney Houston, I Wanna Dance With Somebody. 

In 2019, Sabrina appeared on Good Morning Britain to defend Meghan  as ‘absolutely lovely’ amid the Sussexes’ private jet row. 

In 2020, she revealed how attending the 2018 wedding of Meghan and Prince Harry transformed her profile in just a few minutes. 

The 32-year-old, who wed actor Idris Elba, 47, in 2019  said walking into the royal wedding, televised around the world, saw her transformed from ‘Sabrina from Vanouver’ to ‘I don’t even know what to call it’. 

Describing what it was like to attend the royal wedding – the couple are friends with the Sussexes, Sabrina said her phone didn’t stop with alerts after her appearance at the nuptials was caught on camera.

She said: ‘It has never been so busy. I didn’t look at it, out of respect, but I could feel it dinging.’

Sabrina, who was raised in Montreal with Somali heritage, added that when she did finally check her phone later on, ‘every single person I know just saw me walk into this wedding on TV – and I don’t even know how to explain that feeling. It definitely went from being “Sabrina from Vancouver” to – I don’t even know what to call it now!’

MEGHAN’S SHOWBIZ FRIEND: PRIYANKA CHOPRA

Dancing alongside Sabrina in the photograph, with her back facing the camera, is Priyanka Chopra. 

Meghan and Priyanka Chopra have been friends since January 2016 after meeting at an ELLE Women in Television dinner.

Afterwards Meghan told Press Trust of India she was thrilled when Chopra admired her work, adding: ‘You know when you meet someone and you just click? It was just an easy, natural progression.

‘We’ve managed to keep in touch via email and text, and try to see each other whenever we’re both in the same town.’

The Indian actress was a guest at her wedding to Prince Harry in May 2018, however Meghan didn’t attend her wedding to Nick Jonas that December and Priyanka was subsequently absent from Meghan’s baby shower, prompting rumours of a feud.

Priyanka however laughed off these claims, insisting it was simply ‘not true’.

Priyanka has been a vocal champion of Meghan since they became close; when the Duchess was named one of Time’s Most Influential People of 2018, she wrote a piece detailing her special qualities.

In the article, she predicted that Meghan ‘will be a princess for the people’ and branded her a ‘relatable young woman with her heart and mind in the right place’.

A source previously told E! News that Meghan confides in Priyanka about the ‘adjustments’ she had to make with being a royal.

MEGHAN’S CLOSE FRIEND: JANINA GAVANKAR

In another snap revealed by the couple over the weekend, the pair can be seen dancing with their faces close together while a number of friends join them in the background.

One friend who was dancing particularly enthusiastically was actress Janina Gavankar, who can be seen with her mouth open with joy. 

Meghan and Gavankar, 40, who lives in Los Angeles, have been friends for 17 years after meeting when they were both starting out as actresses in the early 2000s.

She attended the 2018 Royal Wedding and took the couple’s 2019 Christmas card photo.

Janina appeared in the 2020 basketball film The Way Back with Ben Affleck and is also known for her role in Apple TV’s drama The Morning Show with Steve Carell and Jennifer Aniston.

She played a lesbian in one season of drama The L Word, a shapeshifter in fantasy horror series True Blood and a security agent on supernatural drama Sleepy Hollow.

Her film roles also include 2014 rom-com Think Like A Man Too, starring Kevin Hart and Regina Hall.

As well as her acting career, Gavankar is also a musician and was part of an all-female singing group called Endera.

Gavankar is also a fan of video games and has lent her voice to Far Cry 4 and Star Wars Battlefront II.

In her Twitter bio she describes herself as an ‘actor. musician. geek.’

Janina has been a vocal supporter of the Duke and Duchess over the years. 

Speaking in May 2018, she said she hoped the couple would get ‘as much privacy as possible’.

She added: ‘As much as the world will allow them, I hope for more. Truly.’

Speaking to Entertainment Tonight in 2020, Janina opened up about her relationship with the royal.

The actress said despite Meghan’s life as a royal, nothing about their friendship had changed, explaining: ‘We met 16 years ago, and we’ve just been apart since, so our friendship lives on FaceTime, no matter where we are.’

On This Morning in March 2020, Gavankar was also asked by presenter Phillip Schofield if she had spoken to Meghan about coming onto the show.

She replied: ‘Oh yes, absolutely, I talk to them of all the time, we watched the special together, actually. We’re all happy that we are in a new era, we get to tell the truth.’

Gavankar added: Things are different now. But I will say I don’t speak for them, I speak for myself.’

The actress said: ‘I think they are feeling free.

‘It is nice to see them feel free. Now they can get back to what they really were focused on and how they really met and fell in love, that was through humanitarian and environmental work, they have Archewell.

‘They have been doing that kind of work way before they met each other and now they can do it together. 

HUSBAND OF MEGHAN’S BESTIE: DARREN LITT

Dancing alongside Janina is a close friend of Meghan’s, Darren Litt. He is also pictured in a different photograph along with Jessica Mulroney, Abigail Spencer and Lindsay Roth.

Darren is married to Benita, who has long been a close friend of Meghan’s. The couple share two children, whom Meghan is godmother of.   

Benita, who runs her own brand agency in Venice Beach, California.

Benita is one of Meghan’s closest friends with the former actress acting as godmother to her daughters, Rylan, seven, and Remi, six.

Both of the girls were bridesmaids during the ceremony, looking adorable in their white dresses and sweet floral headbands as they walked into the chapel holding their mother’s hand.

In a since deleted Instagram post, Meghan shared a picture of herself with the family – including her two ‘fairy god-daughters’ – showing them happily posing in front of a Christmas tree after spending the holidays together in 2016. 

It has also been rumoured that Benita is a godmother to Harry and Meghan’s son Archie. 

Benita is married to Darren, who is an investor and entrepreneur. 

HARRY’S ‘VEGAS’ PAL: ADAM BIDWELL  

Brighton-born Adam Bidwell is a sales manager for financial firm Investec, and a long-term favoured member of Prince Harry’s entourage. 

He was famously photographed with the Prince in a Jacuzzi during Harry’s wild trip to Las Vegas in 2012.

He can be seen on the far left of the image alongside a host of other friends at the evening reception. 

He dated Katherine Jenkins for six months in 2013, but generally ‘Bidders’, as he is known, tends to keep a low profile. 

In 2018, Adam, who is an ambassador for Prince Harry’s charity Sentabale, paid a visit to Phelisanong Children’s Centre in Pitseng with the Duke. 

HARRY’S ‘DEPUTY BEST MAN’: JACK MANN  

Prince William may have acted as Prince Harry’s official best man for the occasion – but his best friend Jack Mann was his ‘deputy.’

The long-term school friend of Harry can be seen with his arms around the back of the other men.

Jack is the son of a SAS officer turned mercenary, Old Etonian adventurer Simon Man.

He was a Sandhurst contemporary of Prince Harry and served in the Blues and Royals.

He has has served in Afghanistan and Iraq before moving into the private security industry.

He now runs his own business and is regularly spotted at society weddings where Harry is also present – they will have almost certainly been on stags together.

While it is not known how close he remains to Prince Harry, Jack is believed to have been among the ushers who were included in a ‘lad’s lunch’ organised by the Duke last year.

Though lunch with your old mates may be normal for most people, many of Harry’s closest friends have felt sidelined since his 2018 wedding and his drastic move to California.

HARRY’S ‘FATHER FIGURE: MARK DYER   

Mark was an usher at Harry’s wedding and was once described by Royal biographer Penny Junor as one of the ‘few people who talks some sense into him’. 

Harry spent two months Lesotho during his gap year at the invitation of Prince Seeiso, a friend of Dyer.

The experience made a lasting impression on the royal, then aged just 19, when he worked with orphaned children with Aids and met other traumatised youngsters.

And when he returned to the UK and told Prince Charles he wanted to start a charity, Dyer was the driving force behind its foundation alongside Harry and Prince Seeiso, according to royal author Penny Junor.

Cheltenham ­College educated Dyer, known as Marko to friends, became a steadying big brother figure to the princes in the mid-Nineties when he worked as an equerry to the Prince of Wales for 18 months.

Prince Charles appointed Dyer to keep an eye on his sons and was brought in as a male counterpart to former royal nanny Tiggy Legge-Bourke.

During the first half term after Diana’s death, when the boys would have been with their mother, Prince Charles was committed to a five day visit to Africa.

He took Harry along and while the Prince carried out engagements, Harry went off on safari in Botswana, organised by Mark.

From then on he was a key guiding figure as Harry and William tried to come to terms with the loss of their mother.

Tthe former Welsh Guards officer, then 34 would drive to Eton to take William out for lunch and talked to Harry about Sandhurst and even helped plan their gap years abroad.

When Harry admitted to smoking cannabis as a teenager and Prince Charles insisted he spend a day at a residential centre for drug users in Peckham, South London, meeting recovering cocaine and heroin addicts, it was Dyer who escorted him along with his royal protection officers.

However, after his spell as an employee to the Prince ended he remained a mentor to Harry.

Rather than being a stern father figure, Mark was a friend to the young Prince.

He was reportedly fond of the Prince’s former girlfriend Chelsy Davy and sneaked her out to the ranch where Harry was staying in Argentina during his gap year before starting his Army training at Sandhurst.

The pair travelled together to Australia, Lesotho and Argentina during Harry’s gap year.

He intervened, begging the Australian media to give the 19-year-old Prince some privacy when he was hounded by photographers and TV crews as he learned skills such as herding and branding at a remote cattle station in the outback.

Around the time Harry started at Sandhurst, Mark had been with William and Harry as a part-time aide for around eight years.

He stepped aside from an official role when Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton took on the job of Private Secretary to William and Harry.

But he remained a steady presence in their lives, especially Harry’s.

‘Mark Dyer had been invaluable; he had done a superb job in supporting and guiding both Princes through their adolescence and showing them something of the world – also introducing them to Africa,’ Penny Junor wrote in her biography Prince Harry: Brother, Soldier, Son.

‘He’s a very straightforward, hard-living adventurer and a great soldier. He was also somebody the Princes could relate to at that age; and they remembered him from their childhood when he’d shown them guns and tanks and things and taken them rock climbing.

‘The press thought he was a bad influence but he did a bloody good job for them. He had huge integrity, and he was around when they needed advice that didn’t come from their father.’

Speaking of Dyer’s influence on Harry, she explained: ‘Mark Dyer is incredibly good for him because he’s one of the the few people who talks some sense into him at times.

‘One of the most absurdly inaccurate things that’s ever been written is that Mark Dyer is in some way a bad influence on him.’

In 2009 Mark founded the management company MDM Bars and Pubs and runs two pubs The Sand’s End and The Brown Cow, in south-west London which are both frequented by Prince Harry

THE DUCHESS’ ESTRANGED FRIEND: JESSICA MULRONEY   

Meghan and Toronto stylish Jessica were inseparable from the moment they met on the set of TV show Suits. However, reports from recent years have speculated their friendship may be on the rocks.

Mulroney was one of Meghan’s closest pals prior to the potential rift between the pair following Jessica’s comments about ‘white privilege’. 

Rumours of a fall-out between the two women have continued to swirl, with only fleeting mentions of Jessica in the Netflix docu-series – including a blink-and-you’ll miss it snap of her at the couple’s wedding. 

While some of the Duchess of Sussex’s closest friends – including college pal Lyndsey Roth and Suits producer Silver Tree – speak to camera in the series, so far Jessica hasn’t appeared.  

And Mulroney went silent on social media as the Duchess’ new Netflix documentary dropped on Thursday – despite a very intimate phone call between the two women featuring in the series.

Prolific social media user Jessica – who boasts 412,000 followers on Instagram – has not posted anything on her feed in the past three days. The stylist has also not appeared on her Stories. 

In the second episode of the show, Meghan handed over footage from the night her and Prince Harry got engaged in 2017 to Netflix producers.

Moments before Prince Harry popped the question in the Walled Garden of Kensington Palace, the former Suits star appears to have video-called her Toronto-based friend. 

As she approached the setting, Meghan said: ‘Oh my God Jess, it’s happening. He told me not peek.’

The footage then jumps to a never-before-seen clip of the romantic proposal of Prince Harry down on one knee and surrounded by 15 electric candles. 

From helping her choose her dress to coordinating plans, Jessica was a key player at Meghan and Harry’s 2018 wedding, and both her sons and daughter were even involved in the celebration.

The day of the royal wedding Jessica shared snaps on Instagram and captioned the post: ‘Proud friend. Proud mom.’

Later, a palace insider even suggested to the Mail on Sunday that Meghan frequently confided in the stylist as her and Harry began to solidify their plans to step down as royals.

The source said: ‘Jessica was more influential on “Megxit” than anyone really realized.’

Following the announcement Harry and Meghan were leaving the Royal Family, Jessica said: ‘A strong woman looks a challenge in the eye and gives it a wink.

MEGHAN’S COLLEGE BEST FRIEND: LINDSDAY ROTH  

Author and producer Lindsay is one of Meghan’s oldest friends, having studied at Northwestern University with the Duchess – and their close bond was further cemented when Lindsay asked Meghan to serve as her Maid of Honor at her wedding.

She has remained fiercely loyal to Meghan over the years – speaking out in defense of the former Suits star on a number of occasions, including in 2021, when claims of bullying were levied against the Duchess. 

Lindsay features several times in the first three episodes of the documentary, opening up at first about Meghan’s summer 2016 plans, revealing that the Duchess had several trips planned and wanted to spend the months being ‘free’ and single… until she met Harry.

Meghan’s college pal also detailed the ways in which she says the former actress dealt with the earliest days of her relationship with Harry, telling the cameras: ‘She was giddy. 

‘But I also know that she was really trying to live in the moment. She wanted to just get to know him for him, not for who the public thought he was.’

THE FORMER SUITS CO-STAR: ABIGAIL SPENCER  

Abigail, 41, spent years appearing alongside Meghan in Suits – with the two forming a close friendship during their time on-set together. 

That friendship was made incredibly apparent in the docuseries, with Abigail revealing that she was one of the first people to learn about Meghan’s then-secret relationship with Harry. 

‘It was 2016, Meghan and I met up in New York,’ she recalled. 

‘We really enjoyed going to have tea and champagne at Bergdorf Goodman. We’d be like, “Let’s meet at the tea room at Bergdorfs.” 

‘She’s like, “Um yeah, I think I met someone and I’m in love. It’s Prince Harry.”‘

Like several of Meghan’s other friends who feature in the Netflix show, Abigail was full of excitement over the earliest stages of their relationship. 

‘I could just feel everything in her body vibrating,’ she shared. ‘We have a photo from that moment. I was screaming because I could tell it was different. 

‘It was very clear from the moment she told me about him that they were in love and they were going to go to the ends of the earth to be together.’

However, Abigail was also quick to make clear how much Meghan had sacrificed in order to make her relationship with Harry work, particularly under the burning glare of public scrutiny. 

‘She had a whole life before she met H,’ she said. 

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