While their bridal outfits couldn't have been more different, Doria Ragland looked just like her daughter Meghan Markle on her "unconventional" wedding day in 1979.
Aged just 23, Doria married Thomas Markle at the Self-Realisation Fellowship Temple on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles. Unearthed wedding photos published in The Mail on Sunday share a peek inside the Duchess of Sussex's parents' surprisingly relaxed outfits.
Doria was a beautiful boho bride in a white buttoned-up shirt with short sleeves tucked into a waist-defining midi skirt. She finished off her low-key, effortless look by placing pretty white flowers in her hair.
While her ensemble was worlds apart from Duchess Meghan's clean-lined bateau neck gown by Clare Waight Keller of Givenchy, the mother-daughter duo both chose fresh-faced beauty looks. In the candid photographs, Doria opted for a minimal makeup look that highlighted her natural beauty, while Meghan's freckle-baring makeup earned her praise from royal fans when she married Prince Harry in 2018.
Thomas also kept his look on the smart/casual side with a tweed-looking blazer, orange shirt and dark tie. The Duchess of Sussex's uncle, Joseph Johnson, spoke to the publication to reveal: "It was a lovely wedding but not conventional at all."
Their daughter Meghan was born two years after the marriage, but the couple divorced when Meghan was six years old.
In Channel 5's documentary Thomas Markle: My Story, Meghan's father spoke about his marriage, saying: "It went well for a while, but I wasn’t home enough. Doria had other interests as well. What was going on in that household at that time wasn’t making me happy.
"So at first she wanted to move back into the city and that is what happened. Then we divorced after that."
It marked Thomas' second marriage, following his relationship with Rosalyn from 1964 to 1975.
It is believed that the mother-of-one Doria is now single and she currently lives in a house in the View Park-Windsor Hills neighbourhood of Los Angeles. It is just under a two-hour drive from the Duke and Duchess of Sussex's huge Montecito mansion, so we are sure the grandmother gets lots of visits from her grandchildren Archie and Lilibet.
Doria made her first public comments about Meghan and Harry's relationship during their Netflix docuseries. While she admitted "it seemed like a novelty" when they first announced they were dating in 2016, she soon began to struggle with the media interest. The doting mother revealed that she was being "stalked" by paparazzi which made her feel "unsafe".
"I felt unsafe a lot," she explained. "I can't just go walk my dogs, I can't just go to work. There was always someone there waiting for me, following me to work. I was being stalked by the paparazzi.
"Once I pulled over and so [the paparazzi] pulled next to me and said, 'You know, I'm just trying to get a story. You can get a lot of money for this,' and I just looked at him and said: 'This is my child. I have nothing to say.'"
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