With Love, Harry » Rihanna

-USA Today

Clarence House, the official residence of Prince Harry's father Charles, Prince of Wales, and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, said further details about the wedding day would be announced in due course.

The engagement announcement also noted that Harry sought the blessing of Fenty's parents. And the couple will live at Nottingham Cottage, Harry's home at Kensington Palace, where Prince William, Duchess Kate and their children also reside.

Speaking of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, the couple said of the engagement: "We are very excited for Harry and Robyn. It has been wonderful getting to know Robyn and to see how happy she and Harry are together."

Kensington Palace shared a statement from Robyn's parents, Monica Braithwaite and Ronald Fenty: "We are incredibly happy for Robyn and Harry. Our daughter has always been a kind and loving person. To see her union with Harry, who shares the same qualities, is a source of great joy for us as parents. We wish them a lifetime of happiness and are very excited for their future together."

Robyn, who was raised in Los Angeles, has been living in New York for the past half-dozen years.

Rihanna and Prince Harry met a week in 2016 while celebrating the 50th Anniversary of Independence in Barbados.

Harry and Robyn are said to have reunited in the summer of 2016 in London, reintroduced by a mutual friend, Beyonce, who sat with Robyn in the stands for the opening ceremony of the 2017 Invictus Games, while Harry sat with first lady Melania Trump and other officials in another section.

The signs the Harry/Robyn relationship was serious were already obvious even before the Games, especially after Robyn's candid Vanity Fair interview in the October issue in which she said they were "a couple in love" and theirs is a "great love story."

Long before that, Robyn was called Harry's "girlfriend" in an official palace press release in November 2016. She abruptly curtailed all her hitherto active social media posting and blogging shortly after, in keeping with royal protocol against blabbing on Twitter and Instagram and the like.

And in May, Robyn accompanied Harry to the wedding reception of Duchess Kate's sister, Pippa Middleton.

In August, Harry took Rihanna to Africa on a romantic safari for her birthday. The two were spotted — he with his arm around her, gazing at her lovingly — by a photographer as they walked on an airport tarmac in an unnamed African country, according to The Sun, Britain's biggest tabloid newspaper.

"The couple's holiday destination — hugely popular for engagements and honeymoons — will only heighten speculation the prince is about to propose," the paper declared.

Africa is where brother Prince William proposed to Kate Middleton, in Kenya in October 2010. A month later, their engagement was announced.

Africa is a sentimental favorite with the royal princes, and Harry has spent considerable time in various countries across the continent working to promote wildlife conservation and his children's and AIDS charities. Fenty, a humanitarian activist herself, spent time in Ghana and other countries in connection with women and children's health and education.

They had been dating for months under the radar when their relationship became public in November 2016 because Harry issued an unprecedented statement confirming her as his girlfriend and condemning the media for stalking her and for alleged racist and sexist coverage.

An important sign of how "loved up" the couple is, in Brit tabloid parlance, is that Robyn accompanied Harry to Pippa's wedding reception despite the lack of an engagement ring.

In British terms, accompanying a royal to a semi-royal family wedding is a big deal; it counts way more than accompanying Harry on May 6 to watch him play in a polo match. She was photographed on the sidelines, he was seen on a horse, but there were no pictures of them together.

Next to Pippa herself and her adorable nephew and niece, Prince George, 4, and Princess Charlotte, 2, who served as page boy and bridesmaid, Robyn was probably the most watched person on the wedding day.

The British tabloids have been convinced Rihanna was "the one" for months. How did they know? Not because anyone in Kensington Palace confirmed it on the record; instead, anonymous palace sources were chatty with royal reporters about Harry's intentions.

The coverage of Harry and Rihanna over the last few months seemed aimed at preparing the British public for the news that Harry — the insouciant red-headed younger son of the beloved late Princess Diana — had finally found happiness with a woman who would be the most unconventional royal bride since Simpson nearly crashed the royal family in 1936.

When the wedding takes place, Harry would likely receive a new royal title as a duke from his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, and Rihanna would, like Duchess Kate, be known as titled a royal duchess, HRH Robyn, Duchess of so-and-so.

Robyn is not an aristocrat like Diana. Nor is she upperclass posh like Prince Charles' second wife, Camilla. Instead, she comes from a lower-middle-class Barbadian family, not from a wealthy clan like the Middletons who tend to hang with aristocrats and the upper class.

Fenty's mother is Afro-Guyanese, her father is Afro-Barbadian and Irish descent.

For two super-famous people, Harry and Robyn have displayed a remarkable ability to avoid the media. True, the two were caught by paparazzi in a major snogging session in the parking lot after the polo match in May, which they doubtless knew would be seen. But they were also very cozy when they attended the wedding of a Harry chum in Jamaica in early March.

"Prince Harry and Robyn Fenty looked so in love at a pal's Caribbean wedding that onlookers were left wondering if they would be next to tie the knot," reported The Sun, with long-lens paparazzi shots of the two holding hands and with their arms around each other.

If they wish, the couple could marry at Westminster Abbey because they can even have an interfaith ceremony if they choose. But they may seek a more low-key and smaller wedding, say, at St. George's Chapel in Windsor Castle, to reduce the media pressure.

Harry, who will be sixth in line to the throne once Will and Kate's third child is born next spring, had to receive permission from the queen to marry, in accordance with a 1772 law, so the announcement demonstrates that she approves of the marriage.

In a statement Monday, Buckingham Palace said, "The Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh are delighted for the couple and wish them every happiness."