The wedding photographer who had the grand job of capturing the photographs for Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s wedding day explained the difficulty of gathering the royal children and family members together – and the trick he used to help capture their attention.
Photographer, Alexi Lubomirski, only had a limited time with the family members for the important snaps and described how “nothing was ready” when the late Queen Elizabeth II arrived in the room.
Alexi explained: “At one point, none of the kids were looking at me. They’re all running around. And I could see the Queen shuffling in her seat. So I suddenly shouted, ‘Who likes Smarties?’ – remembering what the nanny had said before. And all of the kids looked at me.”
He added: “And Harry suddenly said, ‘Me’, which makes you smile, and everybody laughed and smiled, and the kids were like, ‘Me!’ So I took the picture. Snap, snap, snap!”
The photographer revealed the clever way the nannies bribed the group of children so they would behave during the wedding proceedings. He explained how one of the nannies had said to the children: “If you’re good, you’re gonna get Smarties.”
Alexi explained: “And for some reason, that stuck in my head.”
The photographer is best known for taking the official photographs of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle for their engagement and wedding.
He has revealed some behind-the-scenes information from the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s big day on his ‘ReSHOOT’ TikTok series, which sees Lubomirski look back on some of his most well-known shots, which include photos of Beyoncé, Demi Moore, and Charlize Theron.
Attending the ceremony as a guest with his wife, Giada Lubomirski, Alexi joined the Firm in the Green Drawing Room after the vows and set about preparing to take their picture.
Photographing the family would be a pressurising job at the best of times, but Lubomirski revealed that Prince Harry had also warned him before the event that Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip found lengthy photo calls to be tiring at times.
The photographer recalled how Harry had told him: “They’re very old, they’ve taken so many pictures in their life. If you don’t get it quickly, they’re just going to move out.”
When he found himself requiring five more minutes to get the perfect snaps, Lubomirski quickly apologised to the late Queen, who reportedly joked, “It’s not me you need to worry about,” referring to her husband, the late Duke of Edinburgh.
