It’s not every day that an American marries into the royal family. The world will be watching this Saturday as Prince Harry exchanges vows with Los Angeles-born actress and philanthropist Meghan Markle—who joins Baltimore’s Wallis Simpson and Elizabeth Bonaparte on the list of yankees who have married a royal.

Locally, there are plenty of businesses getting in on the hype, including Eleven Courses Catering & Event Co. headquartered in Owings Mills. Husband-and-wife owners Melissa and Jim Benson are so inspired by the upcoming nuptials, that they have come up with a list of menu predictions for the entire affair.

“We thought, if they were our clients, how would we guide them and give them suggestions?” Melissa says. “We took a look at what each of their food styles and preferences are. We planned it so it took some favorites of theirs, but still did it in an elegant and refined way.”

Though a lot of their decisions were based on research of the bride and groom’s tastes, Melissa says that she also drew inspiration from a culinary trip that she and Jim took to England a few years back. She says that her first time tasting authentic coronation chicken—a British delicacy similar to a curried chicken salad—was a clear highlight of the trip.

“A lot of people don’t really think of curry as a British thing, but it’s actually quite popular,” she says. “I researched a little more about it, and apparently curries and other comfort foods are some of Prince Harry’s favorite dishes.”

The caterers’ list of predictions includes canapes such as mini egg and avocado toast points, Tuscan white bean puree crostini, asparagus mousse and cucumber tarts, and a roasted chicken and local root vegetable dish served on a teardrop spoon to pay homage to the couple’s intimate engagement dinner.

For the seated portion, Melissa and Jim predict three courses including lump crab-stuffed roasted red peppers, Windsor Estate filet of beef, and a lemon elderflower cake with buttercream icing—one prediction that has already been confirmed. (The cake will be made by famed bakeshop Violet Cakes London.)

“I actually didn’t know this at first, but the Queen has to approve every item on the menu,” Melissa says. “So it has to be something elegant, but still fun and a little bit different that shows their personalities well.”

The Bensons predicted everything down to the late-night snacks, which Melissa says were inspired by Markle’s California roots. Their mock menu features angus beef sliders, blackened fish tacos, and a French fry station with sriracha ketchup, malt vinegar, and garlic rosemary aioli.

“With Megan being American and coming into the royal family, it definitely seemed like she would pull from that heritage,” Melissa says. “She also used to have a lifestyle blog called The Tig, so I know that she’s really into food and cooking.”

Though they will be busy catering local weddings this Saturday, the owners are looking forward to catching recaps of the royal wedding festivities to see how their predictions play out.

“We’re excited to take a look as soon as that information comes in,” Melissa says. “I’m interested to see what parallels, and if there are any surprises in there.”

For everyone else looking to tune into the spectacle on the telly this Saturday, there are plenty of local bars and restaurants getting in on the fun with posh viewing parties and regal food and drink deals. Put your pinkies up at these area spots:

B&O American Brasserie: The team at this bar inside the Hotel Monaco is always down to get creative with its cocktails. In honor of the world event, the spot will be offering “The Royal Fizz,” which combines Jensen’s London dry gin, Royal Combier liqueur, lemon, egg white, and brut champagne. 2 N. Charles St., 443-692-6172

The Corner Pantry: British-born chef Neill Howell has dreamed up a special brunch menu to celebrate the big day. Stop by his Mt. Washington restaurant to enjoy high tea (think scones, tea sandwiches, clotted cream, petit fours, and the works) and a Prince Harry-themed bacon and white pudding butty sandwich topped with the United Kingdom’s famous HP sauce (a vinegary ketchup named after the House of Parliament). Howell is also offering a special Royal Wedding Tea Latte featuring Harney and Sons Royal Wedding Tea with rosebuds, as well as a special elderflower and lemon wedding donut inspired by the couple’s cake flavor. 6080 Falls Road, 667-308-2331

Emma’s Tea Spot: Throw on a bowler hat and head to this Hamilton tea room owned by Emma Canoles, a native of Surrey, England. The authentic spot, which even features its own replica of a British telephone booth, is opening bright and early at 6 a.m. for locals hoping to tune in to the wedding at 7 a.m. The viewing party will also double as a launch for Emmas’ new menu of breakfast sandwiches. The party will be BYOB with a $5 corking fee per party. 5500 Harford Road, 410-444-1718.

The Ivy Hotel: Fun fact: long before this 19th-century mansion became a boutique hotel, it was a private hangout for socialites like Wallis Simpson, a Mt. Vernon local who went on to become the Duchess of Windsor. To celebrate the property’s roots—and its British-born chef Mark Levy—The Ivy is offering a special “Rest Like a Royal” package throughout the month including one night in a luxe suite, welcome champagne, a 24-carat gold spa mask, afternoon English cream tea, and a full gourmet breakfast. 205 E. Biddle St. 410-514-6500 

Celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay, who was raised in Stratford-upon-Avon—the birthplace of Shakespeare—is known to be a total drama king in the kitchen with his fiery temper and profanity-laced language. But in person, he’s as affable as they come. Ramsay, who has 32 restaurants all over the world (and TV shows all over Fox including Hell’s Kitchen, MasterChef, and The F Word with Gordon Ramsay) has been in Baltimore getting ready to open Gordon Ramsay Steak at the Horseshoe Casino. This is his first steakhouse on the East Coast, and a sister spot to his Las Vegas eatery. We caught up with the multi-Michelin starred chef to talk about steak, Baltimore, and The Bard. 

Have you visited Baltimore before?
I’ve been four times. It’s a lot like London, hardworking, not over-glamorized. It’s just one of those vibrant cities that has a real passion to it. You sense that just walking to the stadium. I didn’t go to the game, but I watched it on TV and visited the stadium this morning. 

I know you worked in an American steakhouse early in your career. What did you learn?
It was just this feeling of warmth and generosity, and it was that kind of hustle and bustle of the place that I loved. It was absolutely jam-packed. Everyone was snug in the booth, and the food was exceptional. The standard of the meat was the most important thing to me, just the quality of the beef, whether it was grass-fed or dry-aged, the quality was second to none.

You’ve said that you know whether a restaurant is going to be good or bad in seconds. What are you looking for when you dine out?
I send my wife to the bathroom. I want to make sure that the bathrooms are immaculate before I sit down. If the hygiene isn’t right, I leave immediately—that sets the tone. And then there’s the lighting. Lighting needs to be an enhancer. The lighting needs to make you feel welcome and not frigid. And then that first welcome is critical, whether there’s someone in the reception area, a maître d’ or even a server, you need to be made to feel welcome.

To what do you owe your success?
I owe it to my mum. She taught me manners and hard work. Mum had two jobs. She was a nurse at night and a cook during the day. We got to eat the food that didn’t sell. I got that determination and hunger from watching her.

Did you cook with her at home?
She’d never let me cook. I did prep. I’d peel the parsnips. Peel the carrots. The only thing I was allowed to do then was bake. I did a couple of cooking courses at school, but my main interest then was sports. I would go fishing on the river Avon and play soccer. After soccer, I’d go back and help my mum clean and cook. 

Growing up in Stratford-upon-Avon, what was your relationship with Shakespeare?
I used to live next to Mary Arden’s house [Shakespeare’s mother]. Throughout the summer and fall, I was in and out of theater. I was super shy about expressing myself in drama. But I understood that boisterousness and that passion from watching the plays and studying the literature. I wasn’t interested in it, but we had to do it. It gave me insight for theatricality. 

You’re this nice guy. Is what we see on TV for show or is that really a part of who you are?
I don’t parlay bullshit. We’re having a chat because I’m not even in service. But when we step into that arena where you’re paying $60 or $100 for a meal, it’s important to me. I’m not two-faced, I’m not hypocritical—I just call it as I see it. 

What do you think of food critics?
It’s something you have to live with. I’m 51, I’ve been cooking since I was 19. I’ve been judged by individuals who know less about food than I do. I call it rhino skin, because of the beat-ups and the jump-ons and the negativity—you have to skin like a rhino that stretches. And every time [one of my cooks] is upset because someone didn’t like something, I say “rhino.” You have to build that character. I respect the critics when they know what they’re talking about, but I don’t respect the critics when they haven’t got a clue. I had a Russian critic in the U.K. who got so drunk at one of my restaurants once, he phoned me the next day to find out what he had eaten. 

Other than the Union Jack on the ceiling of the dining room, what other British touches have you brought to your steakhouse?
This meat trolley is my Rolls Royce. I wanted to bring a little touch of British-ness to the dining room. Pushing one of these carts is like pushing a Rolls Royce through the dining room. This gets rolled to every table. We spaced the tables and booths purposely far apart. The grade and the marbling of the meat are apparent in the reflective surfaces of the cart. Twenty years ago it used to be a soufflé that would pass through the dining room—now it’s this baby. We have a GPS on it in case it goes missing. It’s good enough to cart the crown jewels. 

Speaking of the crown jewels, are you excited about the upcoming royal wedding?

I’m very excited. We know Prince Harry very well. I’ve seen him at events and had the pleasure of cooking for him. What an amazing match—and what a fantastic time to do it. America and Great Britain are becoming even closer. How cool is that? 

By now, the whole world knows that American actress Meghan Markle will marry Britain’s Prince Harry in May. Congratulations to the happy couple.  

Also by now, many outlets have pointed out that Markle is not the first Yank to marry into the ranks of royalty. Previous trailblazers include fellow actress Grace Kelly (Monaco) and socialites Lee Bouvier (Poland) and Marie Chantal-Miller (Denmark/Greece). Plus, as we all learned from Downton Abbey, marrying American heiresses was all the rage among the British upper class in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as venerable British families sought new American fortunes to prop up their money pit estates. In other words, there’s a long precedent of transatlantic marriages, for any number of reasons, including love. 

But what many may not know is that two Baltimore women are among the more colorful members of this elite tradition. 

The first, Elizabeth “Betsy” Patterson Bonaparte, was the daughter of a prominent Baltimore merchant who, at one point, was the second richest man in Maryland.  

In 1803, Betsy, who was known for her style, vivacity, and beauty, married Napoleon’s youngest brother, Jérome. The marriage was plagued almost from the start. Napoleon disapproved of the union and urged his brother to annul it. When the couple sailed for Europe in 1804, Napoleon forbid Betsy—by then pregnant with the couple’s only child—from disembarking. Her husband pledged to procure Napoleon’s acceptance, but was unsuccessful and quickly gave up, abandoning his pregnant young bride. Betsy found sanctuary in London, where she gave birth to a son, Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte (called Bo), in 1805. But save for one brief encounter in 1817, she never saw her husband again. (She was granted a divorce from him in 1815 by special act of the Maryland legislature.)

But don’t cry for Betsy. The irrepressible heiress returned to Baltimore where she successfully managed her family’s estate and remained a figure of fascination, even making a return visit to Europe at one point where she was warmly welcomed by high society. She died in 1879 at the ripe old age of 94 and is buried in Green Mount Ceremony where her tombstone reads: “After life’s fitful fever she sleeps well.” 

The second—and even more controversial—Baltimorean to infiltrate European royal society was Wallis Simpson, who fell in love with the man who would become King Edward VIII in the early 1930s, and nearly toppled the British monarchy in the process. 

Simpson was born Bessie Wallis Warfield just over the Pennsylvania-Maryland line in June 1896. Her father died of tuberculosis shortly thereafter and she grew up in Baltimore, bouncing from one address to another with her widowed mother. For a period of time around 1905, she and her mother lived in a room at what is now Hotel Brexton on Park Avenue in Mt. Vernon. Thanks to generous relations, including her uncle and one-time Baltimore postmaster Solomon Davies Warfield, she attended the elite Oldfields School in Sparks-Glencoe, where she excelled socially and academically.    

When she became the mistress of then-Prince Edward in 1934, she was already on her second marriage. That marriage, to British shipping magnate Ernest Aldrich Simpson, would end in divorce in 1937, by which time Prince Edward’s father, King George V, had died and Edward had ascended to the throne. The new king marrying an American of no particular fortune or lineage was already an undesirable prospect, but, as the head of the Church of England, the king marrying a twice-divorced American of no particular lineage and fortune was out of the question. In December 1936, King Edward VIII abdicated the throne, telling the British public in a radio address that he “found it impossible to carry the heavy burden of responsibility, and to discharge my duties as King as I would wish to do, without the help and support of the woman I love.” 

Though the story was spun as one of gallantry and love, the reality was much more complicated, with Wallis and Edward—now dubbed the Duke and Duchess of Windsor—living as glamorous exiles the rest of their lives. And while there does seem to have been a genuine bond between the two, royal watchers have long gossiped that the relationship was unhealthy with Wallis acting as a domineering mommy/mistress figure to the feckless, resentful Edward. It has also been said that the Duke and Duchess were Nazi sympathizers, which further tarnished their reputations. (For interesting portrayals of the Duke and Duchess, see Netflix’s The Crown or the Oscar-winning The King’s Speech.)

So, you know, maybe it’s a good thing Meghan’s from California and not Baltimore. We don’t seem to have the best track record with royal weddings.