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.

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:

"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 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: 

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