Two smiling couples beam as they make their way to church on Christmas Day 2018.
The men, brothers born just two years and three months apart, appear happy. Between them are their wives, who are looking at each other with a warmth that certainly appears real.
No one would have imagined when this image was beamed around the world that it would mark the last time these two couples would be photographed together in this way.
In 2018, nobody could have known this was a royal Christmas sight we’d never see again. (Getty)
When it comes to the British royal family’s Christmas traditions, the walk to St Mary Magdalene Church on the Sandringham estate is perhaps one of the best known.
Princes William and Harry grew up making this trek every Christmas.
They were joined by Catherine, now the Princess of Wales, after she and William wed in 2014.
When Harry and Meghan Markle announced their engagement in November 2017, the late Queen Elizabeth II extended an unprecedented invitation to Meghan to join the royals for Christmas at Sandringham a month later.
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Harry and Meghan, who were then engaged, walked to church with Prince William and his wife Catherine. (Getty)
With the pair not yet married, Meghan was not alllowed to stay in the main house, so both she and Harry reportedly accepted an invitation to instead stay with William and Catherine at their home, Anmer Hall, which is also located on the Sandringham estate.
Less than five months later, Harry and Meghan married in a lavish ceremony at St George’s Chapel, inside Windsor Castle, on May 19, 2018.
By Christmas 2018, the couple had been married seven months and had just announced they were expecting their first child.
While stories had already emerged about cracks in the once close relationship between the brothers and their wives, outwardly at least, nothing seemed amiss as they made their way to church.
No one would have known it would be the last time the world would see this scene played out.
By the following year, Harry and Meghan had fled the UK and announced they would be skipping Christmas with the royals, instead choosing to bunker down in Canada with their then infant son Archie and Meghan’s mother Doria.
Just weeks later, on January 18, 2020, came the sensational announcement they were stepping down from their royal duties.
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Meghan pictured decorating a Christmas tree in Canada, where she and Harry spent the holiday in 2019. (Harry & Meghan)
After a series of final public engagements in the UK, they returned to Canada, before heading to the US just as the COVID pandemic took hold.
After a pitstop in Los Angeles, they set up home in Montecito, where they have lived ever since.
It was there they celebrated Christmas 2020 with Archie and Markle’s mother.
Then in 2021, came their first Christmas as family of four after welcoming daughter Lilibet in June that year.
Prince Harry and Meghan celebrated their first Christmas as a family of four in Montecito in 2021. (The Duke and Duchess of Sussex)
A photo of the smiling foursome, on the steps of their new home, was used for the couple’s 2021 Christmas card.
And it is in Montecito that they will spend this Christmas – more than 8000km from Sandringham, but no doubt feeling like a world away from the royal family.
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