The royal wedding will come with a royally expensive price tag!
Experts estimate the cost of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's May 19 nuptials will cost nearly $45 million. By comparison, a typical wedding in the United Kingdom costs about $22,000. Harry and Meghan's nuptials will reportedly place their wedding in the top ten most expensive weddings of all time, ahead of Prince William and Duchess Kate's 2011 wedding, which cost $28 million.
Bridebook broke down the estimated cost of every detail in painstaking fashion, saying the couple will have everything from a "bespoke silver plated fanfare trumpets to a 'drone destroyer.'"
The majority of the cost is security, which estimated to cost about $42 million — some estimates say it will be even more than that. Meghan's dress, along with the flowers, food and drinks will ring in at about $1.4 million.
"Harry and Meghan's wedding is likely to be one of the most iconic weddings in history," Bridebook founder Hamish Shephard said. "Their wedding is the mixing of two incredible time periods. Whilst Harry represents the endless history of the British royal family, Meghan personifies the modern day phenomena of celebrity. Whilst the wedding is being held in a castle following ancient traditions, it will also no doubt break most social media records."
The wedding, Hamish said, will "no doubt be the global wedding of the decade."
Entertainment is estimated to cost about $68,000, which is actually quite reasonable considering the rumors that The Spice Girls will perform.
Mark Niemierko, who has planned weddings attended by royals, told The Telegraph that the couple will probably try to have a low-key affair.
"The dinner-and-dancing part will be the real celebration," he said. "There was a rumor that the Spice Girls might play, but that would cost an average Joe a fortune – about $1.4 million for each band member."
However, he added the wedding may actually cost a little less than it should, based of the global and historic nature of it.
"The royals get a lot more for their money," he said, "because people are happy to do things for free."