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Prince Harry and Meghan Markle: Unexpected update emerges on alleged plans to announce engagement

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle: Unexpected update emerges on alleged plans to announce engagement

We might have to wait a bit longer than expected for the next royal wedding.

The Daily Beast cited a "source with excellent contacts in the palace" as saying that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's impending engagement announcement may be held for a lot longer than originally thought. Multiple reports have surfaced this fall alleging that the private pair would be announcing their engagement this month, with a potential June wedding being the "best bet."

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"There won't be an any announcement until at least after Kate has had her baby in April," the source told The Daily Beast before adding that the couple would live together for as long as year before becoming engaged. The outlet says such a move "is normal among their peer group."

There's a "window over the next three weeks in which an engagement could be announced, but if there is no announcement by the end of the month there is unlikely to be one this year," the outlet continued, citing Harry's insistence on pleasing his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, who doesn't want her Christmas schedule to be interrupted or upstaged by an announcement.

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The Daily Beast cites numerous royals experts, whose speculation ranges everywhere from an announcement by the end of the year to an announcement next spring. Some of the experts interviewed suggest that a wedding could still happen next summer, but call Harry a "loose cannon" who "is impetuous" but "not foolish."

"The signs of seriousness are there -- her [Vanity Fair] cover, appearing together in public -- but there is always room for doubt because he is a serial commitment-phobe," one source said. "He is said to be a 'love addict' and his parents' example is far from encouraging."

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Not only that, but Prince Harry's biographer added that the prospect of having children is undoubtedly a factor in the couple's timeline for settling down together after over a year of dating. Markle is currently 36.

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"The longer it doesn't happen, the more doubt I have about it," Penny Junor told The Daily Beast. "Not least because her biological clock means that if they were going to marry and have children, they would need to get going sooner rather than later."

The cautious speculation comes after months of sources claiming that the couple was either already secretly engaged or "as good as engaged." Last month, Meghan and Harry made their first official public outings together at his Invictus Games in her adopted hometown of Toronto, holding hands and sharing sweet kisses in a private viewing box.

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Markle is reportedly done -- or nearly done -- filming the seventh season of "Suits," which is contractually her last for the USA Network hit. The show is expected to have an eighth season, but Markle may not re-sign to be on it. Instead, she's expected to move-in with Harry in London across the pond.

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