Meghan and Harry sent their wedding flowers to two touching places

The gesture was started by the Queen Mother in 1923

Meghan Markle may have modernised the royal wedding, but she did follow one very hallowed tradition after her big day by sending her bouquet to a special memorial site. Getty 

The royal wedding of Meghan Markle and Prince Harry - now the Duke and Duchess of Sussex - felt both traditional and yet truly of this millennium, with the couple putting their stamp on the wedding via a rousing Episcopal sermon, the presence of an Egyptian Archbishop and a gospel choir.

But one very royal tradition that Markle adhered to was sending her wedding bouquet - which featured forget-me-nots, Princess Diana's favourite flower - to be laid on the Grave of the Unknown Warrior at Westminster Abbey.

The bouquet of flowers carried by Meghan Markle during her wedding was placed on the grave of the Unknown Warrior, whose body was brought from France to be buried on 11th November 1920. The grave, which contains soil from France, is covered by a slab of black Belgian marble from a quarry near Namur. Markle's bouquet included myrtle sprigs from stems planted by queen Victoria in 1845, and a plant grown from the myrtle used in Queen Elizabeth II's wedding bouquet of 1947. AFP

But, in a touching gesture, Harry and Meghan also sent some of the flowers used during their wedding to St Joseph's Hospice in London:

St Joseph's Hospice

"Our hospice smells and looks gorgeous," the hospice wrote in a thank you post.

The floral tradition

The bouquet arrived at the grave on Sunday: the memorial site holds the body of an anonymous soldier, who was was brought from France to be buried at the Abbey on November 11, 1920. The idea for the symbolic burial came to Reverend David Railton after he saw a grave in a garden in France that featured a rough cross with the words 'An Unknown British Soldier' penciled onto it.

The grave is in Westminster Abbey. AFP

The tradition started with Queen Elizabeth's mother, Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, when she married King George VI - then the Duke of York - in 1923. She famously laid her bouquet - unplanned - on the grave during her wedding ceremony in memory of her brother, who was killed in World War I.

Since then, most royal brides have followed suit. Queen Elizabeth did, as did Princess Margaret, Princess Anne, Princess Diana, the Duchess of York and Sophie Countess of Wessex.

Here are pictures some of the other royal bouquets that have been placed there: 

The tradition of Royal brides sending their bouquet to the Grave was started by the future Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother. The bouquet of The Duchess of Cambridge was placed on the Grave in 2011: https://t.co/HuaKTBMGMm #RoyalWedding pic.twitter.com/CuxQiOqYSX

— Westminster Abbey (@wabbey) May 20, 2018

And here is the bouquet of the Countess of Wessex, placed on the Grave after her wedding to Prince Edward in 1999. #RoyalWedding pic.twitter.com/RdctEMZ7kK

— Westminster Abbey (@wabbey) May 20, 2018

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