Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are slowly but surely rewriting the etiquette rules as it pertains to the monarchy.
According to British etiquette expert Grant Harrold, the engaged duo is really doing things their own way when it comes to their May 19 wedding, and some of the royal precedent is essentially being shunned. The fact that the wedding is on a Saturday is the first clue that these two are marching to the beat of their own drum.
"We're talking about the 21st century," Grant, a former butler for Prince Charles, told E! News. "And we're talking about a very modern young couple — a new generation of royals."
Typically with second weddings — Meghan has been married before — the occasion is done with little fanfare. Grant said there are "old-fashioned traditions…[and] certain things that you 'don't do'" with a second wedding.
"The thing about etiquette is, it's always evolving. Rules are always changing," he said, adding that Megan politely declined to take a selfie with a fan during a royal appearance (no selfies is "one of the newer rules," he said.) Meghan will also be prohibited from giving autographs, an old rule that is still followed.
"No more doing that," Grant says. "You can never ask a royal for an autograph. They're not allowed… because you know, it's a royal signature, therefore autographs will be something that she'll no longer do."
Meghan, Grant told E!, "will of course have things to learn from an etiquette point of view, but the chances are she'll probably already know of them, or she'll find them very easy. Nothing will be too complicated for her to pick up on."
Grant added that the fact that Meghan has already made official royal appearances before she and Harry are married is different and "huge." He said it's a sign the royal rules have been relaxed.
Lizzie Post, another etiquette expert, told E!, under "old etiquette," couples "almost tried to make a second wedding a very discrete situation. I think that so many people have come to find partners at different points in their lives who fit them so well and wonderfully, and [they] want to be able to celebrate that, and their family and friends want to be able to celebrate that."
William Hanson, another leading royal etiquette expert in the U.K., spoke to E! News and echoed a lot of what his fellow colleagues said. He pointed to Harry and Meghan's engagement photos,.
"[They're] not very royal, and I mean that in the nicest possible way. If you compare them to William and Catherine's [engagement] portraits which were a little more formal and more traditional, these are pushing the royal boundaries, and probably for the better," he said.
Still, the couple can't totally change everything.
"You have got to remember that the monarchy is an institution that goes back thousands of years, so we can't suddenly become too soap opera-y or too informal," he said. "There's a time and a place for formality."