Why Meghan Markle was uninvited to Pippa Middleton's wedding at the last minute

It has been revealed by royal experts that Meghan Markle was uninvited to Pippa Middleton's wedding at the last minute for a very awkward reason.

• On May 20, 2017, the Duchess of Cambridge's younger sister Pippa married James Matthews at St Mark's Church, in Berkshire near the Middleton family home.
• Although Prince Harry, Prince William, and the Duchess of Cambridge were invited, Meghan Markle was uninvited at the last minute to the ceremony. 
• In other royal news, Kate Middleton's blue outfit at Commonwealth Day service is nod to Ukraine, say fans. 

Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex, was uninvited from Pippa Middleton's wedding at the last minute. Royal experts have claimed that the bride and Carole Middleton feared that the Duchess would 'overshadow the main event' and pull focus from Pippa on her big day.

At the time there were rumors that Meghan Markle and Prince Harry were dating and the press were desperate to snap a shot of the couple together at an event. This meant that if Meghan was snapped at the event with Prince Harry, their secret relationship would be revealed and would upstage the wedding.

The experts Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand said in their book Finding Freedom, that the couple had been hesitant about showing up to the wedding together, and finally, when a headline on the day of the wedding emerged that compared Pippa and Meghan's bottoms, the decision was made that Meghan should not attend the ceremony.

"Harry and Meghan agreed that she couldn't possibly turn up at the church, only fifty meters away from a specially arranged media pen, after such a crass cover story," said the royal experts in their book.

"If they worried their arrival might create a media circus despite taking every precaution, now they had no doubt that it would."

The authors concluded, "Meghan's church outfit and Philip Treacy hat would have to be worn another time."

Although this must have been awkward for Meghan Markle, the Duchess was still able to attend the private reception afterward but was unable to sit with her boyfriend at the time Prince Harry.

The authors revealed, "sitting together in the custom glass marquee that has been erected on the eighteen-acre property should have been a fun night for the couple, but, per Pippa's request, no couples sat together."

Reportedly Prince Harry spent the evening with Tom Bradby, a TV news anchor, while Meghan chatted to Roger Federer's wife Mirka. After the event, the couple then headed back to Nottingham Cottage in Kensington Palace at 2am.

Like Meghan Markle, Kate Middleton also did not want to upstage Pippa on her wedding day. There is a subtle trick the Duchess of Cambridge uses to ensure she never upstages a bride at a wedding which she used at her sister's wedding to ensure that she also didn't pull focus. 

Kate also refused to act as a bridesmaid or Maid of Honor for her sister as she worried that because of her royal status, fans would be more interested in her presence at the wedding, than her younger sibling.