Meghan Markle baby shower: what we know about the private party

The Duchess of Sussex has been welcomed back to her native US with a private baby shower organised by her high-profile friends, according to reports.

With no Prince Harry in tow, the royal mother-to-be jetted over to New York City last Friday for what was originally billed as a “surprise” trip, The Times reports. But after stepping out of her Upper East Side hotel to be confronted by “an army of photographers and crowds of onlookers, it was not such a secret after all”, the newspaper adds.

And the media circus went into overdrive amid reports they she would be celebrating the impending arrival of her first-born child, due in late April or early May, with a party in a penthouse suite at the city’s Mark Hotel.

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Friends of the Duchess were reported to have booked the suite, which costs $75,000 (£57,500) a night, “spans two floors and has five bedrooms, six bathrooms and two powder rooms, offering plenty of space for Meghan’s guests”, reports Hello! magazine.

ABC News royal correspondent Omid Scobie told morning talk show Good Morning America that between 15 and 20 guests were expected to attend.

“[They] include best pal Jessica Mulroney, actress and close pal Abigail Spencer has flown in, and Priyanka Chopra is supposed to be flying in especially for this from London Fashion Week,” Scobie said. “It’ll be a celebration with her closest friends.”

“The trip was planned some months ago and, with [an official trip to] Morroco this weekend, is the last available time Meghan can travel before the Baby Sussex is born,” he added.

Scobie and various media outlets said the baby shower was taking place on Tuesday, but the Daily Mail reports that “a source close to the 37-year-old royal claims that it is scheduled for Wednesday, shortly before Meghan is set to return to London”.

The newspaper says the Duchess and her friend, tennis star Serena Williams, stayed in the penthouse suite on Tuesday night “after enjoying dinner together at a swanky Manhattan restaurant”.

Town and Country magazine adds that the Royal had earlier been spotted entering the hotel “wearing a short-sleeved black jacket over black skinny jeans”, paired “with a nude tote bag and similarly colored stilettos, and finished it off with a pair of sunglasses”.

Regardless of when the private party was taking place, Glamour notes that the celebration is somewhat unusual, as “royal mothers-to-be typically don’t have baby showers”.

Victoria Arbiter, a royals expert, told ABC News in 2013 that such events would be seen as “highly inappropriate”, because the Royal Family is “clearly very wealthy” and “there’s nothing they can’t go out and buy themselves”.

Nevertheless, that is unlikely to deter friends from showering the Duchess with baby presents.

The Times reports that a “stream of gifts” have been spotted arriving at her hotel, including a large crib known as the Hudson 3-in-1 Convertible, which costs $379 (£290).

And there may be more to follow when she returns to the UK. Royal correspondent Scobie tweeted yesterday that the New York “baby shower is the first of two, sources tell me”, with “a smaller gathering scheduled for pals on [the UK] side of the pond after Morocco”.