Pippa Middleton's Lavish Wedding Angered More Than Just Harry & Meghan

In 2017, Pippa Middleton tied the knot with James Matthews in a lavish ceremony. But if you've ever wondered what Pippa and James' wedding was really like, experiences apparently varied quite a bit. The bride and groom themselves certainly seemed happy, but it's also been reported that Pippa's demands for the wedding upset guests Prince Harry and then-girlfriend Meghan Markle. And as it turns out, the Duke of Sussex and his now wife weren't the only ones angered by how Pippa's big day played out.

Keep in mind, when we say Pippa's wedding was lavish, we mean it was lavish. It didn't quite reach the levels of an actual royal wedding, of course, but the total bill was still estimated to be in the realm of £250,000 GBP (just under $334,000 USD at the time of this writing), according to Hello. And despite the fact that the wedding took place at Bucklebury Manor, the estate owned by Pippa's parents Michael and Carole Middleton, the reception was such a production that it still managed to annoy people living nearby. To that end, Hello further reports that Carole actually had to issue an apology to her neighbors for all the noise.

This sort of thing also wasn't an isolated incident for Pippa and James. According to the Daily Mail, the couple once again found themselves at the center of neighbor-related drama in September 2025, when Pippa threw an elaborate party for James' 50th birthday. "I thought this might happen when Pippa moved in. People with money," one upset neighbor told the outlet.

When Pippa Middleton and James Matthews got married in 2017, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle were only about a year into their romance. Of course, Harry's attendance at Pippa and James' wedding was a foregone conclusion, but things got off to an awkward enough start when Meghan had to sit out the wedding ceremony itself.

According to Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand's 2020 Harry and Meghan biography "Finding Freedom" (via the Daily Mail), Pippa and her mother Carole Middleton were hesitant to invite the future Duchess of Sussex, as they were concerned that a new royal romance like Harry and Meghan's would distract from the wedding at hand. That being said, this apparently wasn't a source of too much conflict, as Harry and Meghan themselves also decided it would be best for Meghan to stay away from the church due to their own concerns regarding the media's presence at the ceremony.

Though she missed the wedding itself, Meghan did attend the reception at Bucklebury Manor. However, she and Harry were quickly met with a revelation that reportedly did rub them the wrong way, as they learned that they would not be sitting together. Scobie and Durand wrote in their book that, by Pippa's decree, no couples would be placed together on the seating chart, as she wanted her wedding guests to mingle with people from outside their usual circles. It's not a terrible idea in a vacuum, but given that Harry and Meghan were in a long-distance relationship at the time, we can only assume that their time together being impeded was a bitter pill to swallow.