With
Prince Harry and
Meghan Markle's fairytale wedding one of the most anticipated events of the year so far, there's not much the general public doesn't know about the couple. From
what their future kids will look like to the fact that Meghan's hair and makeup team from Suits will be on hand at the wedding, what other details could there possibly be to learn?
Well, there's one big thing which kind of slipped from everyone's radar. How did the pair meet, exactly?
During their first interview since being engaged, they did say that they'd been introduced by a mutual friend. But between that and the revelation that Harry popped the question while they were roasting a chicken, we somehow forgot to delve deeper into who this "mutual friend" was.
Some speculated it was fashion designer Misha Nonoo, while others pointed to Soho House consultant Markus Anderson. But no-one's leads really went anywhere and instead, the part-time royal wedding detectives went back to trying to predict what the official invites would look like.
But now, it's been revealed who this mutual friend might've been that set up the fifth-in-line royal with the bombshell actress. According to E! News, it was a woman called Violet von Westholz. As her fancy name would indicate, she's daughter to a baron who is a close friend of
Prince Charles. A "well-placed source" told the publication that von Westenholz has been a close friend of Harry's for a few years now through the family connection.
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"Harry was having a really hard time finding anyone," the source said.
"It's hard enough finding someone new to date. He can hardly go on Tinder or a dating app like normal people, but to meet someone that you actually connect with, that was proving to be almost impossible.
"It was something he had confided in his closest friends about; he was ready to meet someone but it was so hard to actually find the right person."
Von Westenholz reportedly met Markle through her job working in PR at Ralph Lauren, and the two were pictured hanging out a lot at the Wimbledon tennis tournament in the summer of 2016. In an old Instagram upload (she's since deleted all social media accounts), Markle posed in Ralph Lauren and gave a shoutout to von Westenholz.
"Meghan had been a part of the London social scene for a while and had slotted into the high society set really easily," the source said. "And so when Harry told Violet he was having trouble finding someone, Violet said she might just have the perfect girl for him."
In their engagement interview, Meghan revealed that it was a blind date that was set up between her and the Prince:
"I didn't know much about him and so the only thing I had asked her when she said she wanted to set us up was, I had one question, I said 'Was he nice?'"
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"We were introduced actually by a mutual friend… it was literally…. through her and then we met once and then twice back-to-back two dates in London, last July," Harry recalled in the same interview.
While von Westenholz is yet to officially address the rumours, there are a lot of signs pointing to the fact that she might indeed be the royal matchmaker we should all be thanking.
