Before officially becoming the Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle had a touching moment with her close friend and makeup artist ahead of the royal wedding.
Meghan Markle may officially be royalty now, but she’s always just going to be “Meg” to close friends, at least that is what she told makeup artist and close pal Daniel Martin just moments before she walked down the aisle at St. George’s Chapel and said “I will.”
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“I asked her that. ‘Do I bow to you? I don’t want to disrespect you, but I’ve known you for almost 10 years. What’s up?’” Martin, who helped Markle prep for her wedding, recalled to PEOPLE. “She started laughing and she said, ‘I’m always going to be Meg. Meg.’”
Martin was one of just five people around Meghan in the hours ahead the royal wedding, the two were joined by hair stylist Serge Normant, dress designer Clare Waight Keller, and Markle’s mother, Doria Loyce Ragland. Despite the significance of the day, Martin said that Markle was relaxed, with the bride-to-be playing “1950s, chilled music.”
“She didn’t seem nervous. She was very cool, she was regular Meghan,” Martin said. “I think we were nervous, but we didn’t want to make her nervous so it was very chilled. Of course, brides have nerves, but if we didn’t put so much expectation on it, it wouldn’t have made her nervous. It was very even, very easy.”
However, once Markle put on her custom Givenchy gown, which featured an open bateau neckline, three-quarter length sleeves, and a 16-foot-long train, things became real.
“It was all so easy. It didn’t hit us that she was getting married until she got the dress on,” Martin said. “It was so beautiful and so architectural, and when she put it on it was like a glove. It was so easy. The spectacle of the veil and the crown and it was, ‘Oh my goodness, this is really happening.’”
He added that the last thing they said to each other before Markle walked down the aisle was “‘We’ll see you on the other side.’”
While she walked down the aisle as Ms. Meghan Markle, following the royal nuptials, Kensington Palace revealed that Queen Elizabeth had officially bestowed the title of Duchess of Sussex onto Markle, with Prince Harry being bestowed with the title of Duke of Sussex. The title was last held by Prince Augustus Frederick, who died in 1843.
Markle will now also be known as Her Royal Highness Princess Henry of Wales.