What do you get the couple that has everything?

Welcome to The Royal Fascinator, your invitation to royal wedding news and analysis ahead of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's nuptials on May 19. Sign up here and it will land as a newsletter in your inbox every Saturday.

How royal wedding gifts have changed: More charity, fewer horses

What do you do about a wedding gift for a couple who wants for nothing? It can be a bit of a conundrum, but for those who feel compelled to give Prince Harry and Meghan something in honour of their marriage, the royal couple has – not surprisingly – eliminated any indecision.

Harry and Meghan are asking that contributions be made to charity. Harry's older brother, Prince William, and his wife, Kate, did the same when they married seven years ago. (Canada gave a donation of $50,000 to the non-profit Canadian Coast Guard Auxiliary.)

Harry and Meghan have been quite public about their interest in charitable works — and similar priorities were front and centre for them this week as they stepped out at Commonwealth events in London. Their chosen charities for donations reflect their wide interests, from homelessness to supporting children growing up with AIDS.

That's not to say other royal couples haven't received gifts – and lots of them, some more practical than others.

The Queen and her husband, Philip, were given more than 2,500 presents when they married in 1947. Some were slightly odd. (a thoroughbred filly from the Aga Khan). Some were more practical (a sewing machine, a fridge and a picnic case).

And some seem, frankly, rather bizarre: 500 cases of tinned pineapple from the Government of Queensland, Australia. It turns out the gift was well-intentioned. Britain was consumed with post-war rationing, and Down Under, there was the thought that such a gift could be shared with Britons glad of a little variety on their plates.

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Canada has offered a wide range of gifts to royal couples over the past century, according to Canadian Heritage. For Elizabeth, there was an emphasis on silver, including candlesticks, 24 silver-gilt dinner plates and a case of table silver,. There was also a gift unlikely to be repeated today: a coat of Canadian mink.

Wood furniture has featured prominently, with presents for Princess Margaret and Anthony Armstrong-Jones in 1960 including six pieces made of Canadian pine. (They also received an engraved map of Canada dated 1755 and a piece of Inuit sculpture.)

In 1981, Harry's parents, Prince Charles and Diana, received antique Canadian furniture, along with a collection of books by Canadian authors and a painting by Robert Bateman. When Charles married for a second time, in 2005 to Camilla Parker Bowles, it was back to wood furniture – a garden bench.

Sometimes the gift was less tangible (or wooden) – and directed toward others. When Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson married in 1986, an endowment for a Duke and Duchess of York prize in photography was created.

Count on Canada to offer something in Harry and Meghan's honour, too. Canadian Heritage says an announcement about a gift "will be made in due course."

It's highly unlikely to be wood furniture.

How exotic will the honeymoon be?

Their first big trip together saw them camping under the stars in Botswana a few weeks after they met, so it's fair to think Prince Harry and Meghan's honeymoon may also take them to a far-flung locale. If so, it would be in keeping with the trip Prince William and Kate took a few days after their wedding in 2011, when they flew off to the Seychelles, an idyllic island archipelago in the Indian Ocean.

It wasn't always this way with royal honeymoons. While there have been Caribbean destinations — and cruises, when the royal yacht Britannia was still sailing — there has also been a distinctly English, and royal, aura to post-wedding escapes. The Scottish highlands have featured in those trips, with newly married couples retreating to the relative peace of the Queen's Balmoral estate.

How happy all those escapes have been is open to debate. Consider the first few weeks of the ultimately doomed marriage of Prince Charles and Diana. They spent a good stretch of time at Balmoral in the late summer of 1981. Afterwards, it was said Diana spent hours crying and wandering alone on the estate.

They can't wait

For a couple who have been tweaking royal tradition where they can, Meghan and Harry were sending serious signals this week.

It's rare for someone engaged to a royal — but not yet married to them — to take on official work in such a public way as Meghan did, appearing at events associated with the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in London. And Harry wasn't shy about saying how much he was looking forward to Meghan working alongside him in his role as a Commonwealth youth ambassador.  

Then again, maybe it's not such a surprise. He also went against the royal grain early in the relationship by publicly identifying her as his girlfriend — something that also just wasn't done.

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