Prince Harry and Meghan Markle Will Not Put Themselves on a Balcony to Kiss for Your Amusement

Oh, you may think that the balcony kiss may be one of the most iconic parts of any royal wedding, but it’s not required. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle will not be participating in the tradition come May 19. On Friday, Us Weekly reported that the couple will not be putting themselves on display up high to smooch for the public’s pleasure, according to a palace spokesperson.

It’s not clear why they’ve chosen to skip the tradition, but Us Weekly speculates that it’s simply because, well, St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle doesn’t even have a balcony. And since Buckingham Palace, where the balcony shots are traditionally taken, is located about an hour away from Windsor Castle, it could be simply too far for Prince Harry and Markle to make the trip. So you can blame both architecture and the concepts of time and distance before placing it solely at the feet of Harry and Markle.

While the balcony photo dates back at least as far as Prince Philip and Queen Elizabeth II, who married at Westminster Abbey and then drove to Buckingham Palace for the photos, Prince Charles and Princess Diana are the ones who started the tradition of the royal wedding’s balcony kiss in 1981. Five years later, Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson, the Duke and Duchess of York, recreated the kiss at their wedding, and Prince William and Kate Middleton did it again in 2011.

The trend of the balcony kiss is all because the Church of England actually forbids kissing in sacred places, so the royal couple’s first kiss has to be taken elsewhere. “There will be no kiss during the wedding ceremony,” Very Reverend Dr. John Hall, the Dean of Westminster, said before the royal wedding in 2011, ExtraTV reported, per Brides. “We don’t do that in the Church of England. That’s sort of a Hollywood thing: ‘You may now kiss the bride.’ It doesn’t happen here.”

But just because the balcony kiss is off the table, doesn’t necessarily mean we won’t get to see a first kiss between Prince Harry and Markle. As Brides previously reported, some experts think the first kiss will take place on the steps of St. George’s Chapel.

“They know how eagerly this will be anticipated and I think there is certain to be a kiss for the cameras to reach the vast global audience who will be watching and waiting,” Richard Fitzwilliams, a royal expert, previously told Express U.K., per Brides.

Consider that Markle is both a princess of the people and a regular royal tradition breaker, it only makes sense that perhaps her first kiss as an official member of the royal family will not happen high above the public on some balcony.

Related: Is Meghan Markle Really Breaking So Many Royal Traditions?