Cressida Bonas was worried about attending her ex-boyfriend Prince Harry’s royal nuptials to Duchess Meghan (nee Markle) — but not for the reason one might think. The English actress opened up about her wedding fears in a “diary” column for U.K.’s The Spectator on Friday, May 25.
“Friends are starting to get married, which means the dilemma of British wedding attire. Hats. Why do I find hats so tricky?” Bonas wrote. “Tricky to wear, tricky to look at, and extremely tricky for the poor soul sitting in the pew behind. Most of the time I avoid headgear. This can prompt disapproving looks from the older generations.”
“Last weekend I attended the royal wedding,” she continued. “The invitation clearly stated that guests must wear hats. Yikes. I opted for a minimal feathered number — and can only hope I got it right.”
Bonas, 29, and Harry, 33, dated from 2012 to 2014 after his cousin Princess Eugenie introduced them. The model, who wore a colorful striped dress to the couple’s Saturday, May 19, wedding at St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle, was not Harry’s only ex in attendance. Chelsy Davy, who was in an on-again, off-again relationship with the prince from 2004 to 2011, opted for a navy dress and a matching hat with a large feather.
After her split from Harry, Bonas opened up about how “frustrating” it is to be known as his ex.
“I think it’s that thing of being pigeonholed,” she explained on BBC’s Woman’s Hour radio show in August 2017. “Especially in this country, I feel people are very quick to put you in a box or put you in a corner and think, ‘Oh, well, you’re that so you must be that.’”
Both women, however, were all smiles walking into the ceremony, despite social media users turning Davy’s seemingly anxious face into a meme after the priest asked attendees asked if anyone objected to Harry and Meghan’s union.
Harry, for his part, moved on from Bonas after he met Meghan on a blind date in July 2016. The newly minted Duke and Duchess of Sussex announced their engagement in November 2017.