It took the couple a few minutes to figure out who they were and once they did, they couldn't help but smile.
When Iliya Pavlovic and Asymina Kantorowicz decided to trek to Vancouver Island's Horth Hill Regional Park and have a picnic, they had no idea that it was definitely going to be an outing forever etched in their mind. At the time, for them, it was a normal, fun day. The only dampener in their situation was that they were finding it difficult to take a nice photo of themselves with their selfie stick.
“We were just finishing up (lunch) and I said ‘Let’s try taking a selfie, it’s a nice scenic backdrop,'” Asymina told Today on January 2, 2020. She added that they had snapped a few photos and were looking at them on the phone when two dogs walked up to them. “We hear a woman approach us and ask if we’d like her to take our photo and we said yes right away,” she explained. What a kind thing for a stranger to do, right?
Only this stranger was someone they had no idea they would ever meet in their life. Though Asymina had noticed that one of the women hiking with the woman's group looked like Suits actress Abigail Spencer, she dismissed the notion. That is until she turned to the woman with her phone. After all, the woman who offered to help them take their photo was none other than the Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle.
“When I looked up, there’s Meghan smiling back at me, waiting for us to take this photo!” she laughed. “Then I looked over at the rest of the group, and there’s Prince Harry with another dog. I kept looking back and forth like, 'Is this actually happening?'" Asymina said, according to Mirror UK.
Despite freezing up though, she managed to crack a joke. "In that moment the only thing I could think to say, 'There's only so much that selfie sticks can do'. She [Meghan] laughed and responded with something like, 'We'll have to do better,' and then Harry said, 'No pressure'."
After taking three photos of the shell-shocked couple, the royals exchanged new year wishes with them before moving on. Asymina, a local news producer for CTV Vancouver Island, told a friend about the incident and immediately their newsroom just had to cover it. “I had just mentioned to one of my girlfriends I work with and she was like ‘What?!’” Asymina said.
And once this story was published, everything changed for this couple. The new producer was bombarded with calls from new media houses across the world. “I honestly felt like yesterday was a dream,” she said. “I actually turned to my boyfriend and said ‘Is this real?’” However, Asymina wished that baby Archie had been with the royal couple. “I feel like I would’ve been more comfortable if Archie were there,” she chuckled. “I would’ve started talking about the baby. But I was in shock, I had no words.”
She also added that she wished she had played it more cool right after the royals were on their way. “But we didn’t want to cause a scene — they seemed so relaxed and happy,” she said. “It was so nice of them to approach us and offer to take our photo.”
Well, looks like this couple had a great start to 2020!
References:
https://www.today.com/popculture/meghan-markle-prince-harry-help-couple-take-cute-picture-while-t171006
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/meghan-markle-helps-couple-struggling-21205341
