Things Meghan Markle Can't Do Now That She Married Prince Harry

Now that some time has passed since Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's royal wedding, it can be pretty easy for us to forget that Meghan is still learning the ropes of royalty. She does make it look pretty effortless, after all. Nevertheless, being a British duchess is a bit different than being a Disney princess. By that we mean there are rules. Lots and lots of rules.

It's true that Meghan had already begun making some major compromises for her Prince Charming long before the wedding. For one, Meghan, who was actually Protestant, was baptized and confirmed into the Church of England prior to marrying Harry, CNN reported. According to New York Post, Meghan also sold her home in Toronto, Canada before the big day. Though we're sure she didn't mind bunking with royalty ahead of the wedding. Of course, Meghan's both small- and large-scale concessions have only increased in number now that the nuptials has taken place.

Here are some things that Meghan has been barred from doing since she has said "I do" at St. George's Chapel.

Pictures abound of Harry and Meghan greeting well-wishers in Nottingham after announcing their engagement. However, what you won't see are any selfies of the pair — whether alone, with each other, or with members of the crowds. Taking a selfie seems like an innocuous thing to do but they're a no for royals. 

Matthew Barzun, a United States ambassador with whom the Queen confided, explained Queen Elizabeth's disdain for cell phone photography to Tatler magazine (via The Telegraph). Apparently, the Queen finds it "strange" to see a sea of cell phones aimed at her when she walks toward a crowd. As far as first-world problems go, this one may pretty much take the cake. Still, it's not hard to understand her point. "She was essentially saying: 'I miss eye contact,'" Barzun explained.

It seems the Queen's personal distaste for selfies has trickled down to the rest of the royal family. You won't find any selfies taken by these Brits and the only selfies of Meghan you'll find are from her pre-Harry days.

As an actress, Meghan has likely signed her fair share of autographs. As a royal, though, those days are now long behind her. The reason for this is understandable: Royals are prohibited from signing autographs due to the risk of signature forgery, as explained by Express. But, what fun are rules if you can't break them from time to time, right? 

When asked to sign autographs, Prince Charles usually defaults to an apology and tells the public he is unable to do so, The Telegraph reported. Be that as it may, when visiting the Lostwithiel area after a natural disaster, a man whose home had been badly damaged asked for his John Hancock. Charles, feeling moved, obliged by writing "Charles 2010." He may have technically broken the rules but he didn't actually sign his name. 

Meghan did something similar in January of 2018 for a 10-year-old fan. According to Time, instead of signing her name on the paper provided, Meghan wrote "Hi Kaitlin." Since Meghan hasn't attempted this again, the Queen may feel a certain kind of way about skirting the rules. No more autographs — signatures or not — it seems.

Meghan is far from being apolitical. Robert Lacey, a historian and biographer of Queen Elizabeth told The Guardian, "I can see that this is going to be a real problem in the months and years ahead for her, an existential problem. I don't imagine the Queen will be in a rush to have Meghan at Balmoral [royal family's vacation house in Scotland] when Trump visits." This poses a bit of a conundrum for Meghan as a member of the royal family because they are expected to stay mum regarding politics — including their thoughts on specific politicians.

Per the official website of the British royal family, the Queen must "remain strictly neutral with respect to political matters." This includes voting in elections. Although the Queen is the only one explicitly prohibited from politics, members of the royal family abide by the same policy. Unfortunately for Meghan, this means she's not be able to share her political views.

When pictures surfaced of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle announcing their engagement, your eyes may have fixated on the ring immediately. After all, seeing the ring is what most of us want to do when someone we know gets engaged. The ring turned out to be beautiful, as was to be expected, but Meghan's legs were what actually stole the show that day. Specifically, her bare legs.

Royal expert Victoria Arbiter explained the situation to Business Insider, saying, "You never see a royal without their nude stockings." Uh-oh. Arbiter added, "I would say that's really the only hard, steadfast rule in terms of what the Queen requires." 

It could be that Meghan didn't know the pantyhose policy at that time — ugh, Harry, why didn't you tell her? — as she now abides by the Queen's preference. Well,  at least she does most of the time.

It may be obvious to you by now that Queen Elizabeth has some pretty peculiar policies. One of the strangest may be the very one Harry's late mother, Princess Diana, hated to follow. 

In an interview for Juliet Rieden's book, The Royals in Australia (via The Telegraph), the Queen's private secretary, Sir William Heseltine, told of Diana's agony while sitting through long royal dinners. 

He explained, "There'd be an hour or so in the sitting room of everyone sitting around making conversation, and nobody felt it right to go to bed before the Queen did." Eventually, Diana got so sick of the pomp and circumstance that she'd excuse herself and go to bed anyway, despite it being considered "rather bad form." 

If Meghan is looking to stay in Queen Elizabeth's good graces, she probably shouldn't follow in Diana's footsteps. When staying at the Queen's residence, she'll unfortunately have to put up with the long — and probably sometimes boring — dinners and social engagements and wait up until the Queen decides to hit the hay. 

As far as board games go, Monopoly is probably one of the worst, aside from Risk of course — eek. Monopoly is really only fun if you win and really, does anyone play long enough to win? 

Apparently Queen Elizabeth shares this sentiment too. According to The Telegraph, Prince Andrew, a son of the Queen, was given the popular game while visiting the headquarters of the Leeds Building Society, only to reveal that he's literally "not allowed" to play it back home. Apparently, the game gets too vicious.

You have to wonder how the Queen decided that Monopoly was just too vicious to play. Did she hear horrible tales of others who played the game? Could it have caused an epic royal battle in the past? We may never know. One can only hope that Meghan is not a die-hard Monopoly fan. If she is, that may just cause some serious tension between her and her grandmother-in-law!

Did you know that Meghan's first name isn't actually Meghan? When Queen Elizabeth formally consented to Harry marrying Markle, this news was officially confirmed. Meghan Markle is actually Rachel Meghan Markle. Ironically, Rachel is also the name of Meghan's character on Suits. It seems Meghan prefers to go by her middle name as this is the name used on the royal wedding invitations. Regardless of which name she prefers best, Meghan's name has changed since the wedding day — and in a big way. 

According to an interview with royal expert Imogen Lloyd Webber for People, Meghan now has the title Her Royal Highness Princess Henry of Wales. However, the Queen gave Harry a new title (Duke) after wedding the former actress. Meghan then became the Duchess of Sussex — much like Kate Middleton's title, Duchess of Cambridge. 

When someone marries into the royal family, their careers don't often come with them. When Prince Philip married Queen Elizabeth some 70 years ago, he became her consort and remained one for over six decades, his biography explains. Prince Philip's days were, and still are, filled with official duties. 

Although Philip was not an actor like Meghan, his official responsibilities crowded out the ability to lead a "normal" life. Grace Kelly, who was an actor prior to marrying Prince Rainier III of Monaco, left her Hollywood career behind.

Meghan followed suit — by quitting Suits. In an interview with BBC, Meghan explained her decision, saying, "I don't see it as giving anything up. I just see it as a change. It's a new chapter." Harry, who was also present for the interview, added, "It's not easy for anybody, but I know that at the end of the day she chooses me and I choose her and whatever we have to tackle together or individually will always be us together as a team, so I think she's capable of anything." It seems her last role was a one-off television show. That is, of course, the widely-televised royal wedding!

Meghan Markle's days of being able to travel solo were a thing of the past before the wedding even took place. According to Express, Meghan was issued royal protection officers in the wake of her engagement to Harry. As you might expect, all current and prospective members of the royal family need ample security. 

According to Gordon Rayner, a writer for The Telegraph who has attended 20 royal tours, the royal family has some unique security needs. Heightened security is especially needed and utilized while they're away on royal tours. For example, Rayner wrote, "Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall sometimes take their own alcohol so there's no danger of their drinks being spiked." Yikes! 

Additionally, the royal tours may look effortless to an outsider but they can actually take six months to plan. Rayner gave his perspective, saying, "Touring the world meeting heads of state and being shown cultural treasures sounds like a wonderful life. Yet I have no envy for the Royal family." 

He added that their site visits are hardly ever longer than 40 minutes at a time and they likely will not travel to that same location again. Thankfully, Prince Harry and Meghan at least got a real honeymoon. Well, as real as you can get when you need to be guarded 24/7.

Sometimes there's just nothing better than indulging in a bowl of creamy, garlicky pasta. But if you're dining with the Queen, it's not exactly an option. Darren McGrady, a royal chef at Buckingham Palace, confirmed to Express, saying, "We can never serve anything with garlic or too much onions. The Queen would never have garlic on the menu." This royally sucks for Meghan, who, before dating Harry, revealed on Today one of her favorite meals: slow-cooked "Filipino-style chicken adobo." The first ingredient? You guessed it: garlic.

Although royal expert and commentator Victoria Arbiter told Business Insider that this is "not a hard and steadfast rule," she thinks the logic behind it adds up. "When somebody is meeting the queen or, indeed, any member of the royal family, the last thing you want to go away remembering is that they breathed garlic breath all over you," she revealed. "So it's common sense, it makes perfect common sense that at Buckingham Palace they wouldn't serve garlic."

Shortly after Harry and Meghan completed their first royal engagement together, Us Weekly reported that all of Meghan's social media accounts had been wiped. "Ms. Markle is grateful to everyone who has followed her social media accounts over the years, however as she has not used them for some time, she has taken the decision to close them," Kensington Palace revealed in a statement to the publication. Months earlier, Meghan also shut down her lifestyle blog, The Tig. Although Meghan amassed a following of over three million people on Instagram, 350,000 on Twitter, and 800,000 likes on Facebook, she decided to trade in her online presence for her Prince Charming.

It's not unusual for royals to be without their own social media accounts. In fact, Princess Eugenie is the only royal who runs her own — and, technically speaking, she's not a "working" royal. Any official posts about Meghan and the rest of the working royal family come not from the royals themselves, but a social media assistant.

Unlike Prince George, Princess Charlotte, and Prince Louis, Meghan wasn't born into royalty. As it happens, Meghan was learning about proper etiquette at about the same time as William and Kate's oldest children. It may sound like a trivial task, but drinking tea was something Meghan needed to learn. That is, drinking tea properly. 

In an excerpt from royal biographer Andrew Morton's biography, Meghan: A Hollywood Princess (via Town & Country), it is revealed that Meghan likely practiced before sitting down for tea with the Queen. "A few months before, she had taken a secret excursion to Rose Tree Cottage, a little slice of England nestled in Pasadena in the suburbs of Los Angeles," the biographer wrote. He continued: "Meghan has visited several times, not only to buy English gifts but to take afternoon tea." In order to drink tea like the royal she now is, Meghan must stir her tea lightly and avoid raising her pinky finger. Oh, and never, ever slurp!

Even prior to marrying Harry, Meghan started practicing what etiquette experts have dubbed the "duchess slant." This position involves bringing the knees and ankles together while angling uncrossed legs to either the left or right side. "Typically the 'duchess slant' is used when a lady has to sit for an extended amount of time while keeping poise and posture," royal etiquette expert Myka Meir and founder of Beaumont Etiquette told People. "It is the perfect pose for when a camera is shooting directly in front of you because by slightly slanting the knees to create a zig-zag effect when wearing a dress or skirt, your legs are angled so that the camera only shoots the sides of your legs and protects your modesty."

Although Meghan Markle has been criticized for crossing her legs, she still always makes sure to angle her legs to one side. Hmm, could this be a new take on the duchess slant?