What a mess.
Weddings are supposed to be wonderfully positive occasions filled with love, romance and good cheer.
A chance for two families, and two sets of disparate friends, to come together as one to celebrate the union of a happy couple.
Fat chance of that with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's wedding, which has swiftly descended into an acrimonious, disorganised fiasco - and there are still three long days until the big day.
Read more: • 'Markle debacle': Meghan's angry mum arrives in UK
Most of the blame for this falls on Meghan's family, who've conspired to behave like a bunch of repulsive PR-crazed Kardashians, exploiting their girl's royal romance for as much money and residual fame as they can squeeze out of it.
From the moment Harry and Meghan went public with their engagement, barely a week has gone by without ever-tackier revelations exploding from the Markles.
It's been the most outrageous, uproarious family reality show in town:
We've had the drunken, violent, drug-addled, estranged half-brother Thomas Jr. penning viciously worded letters to Harry demanding the Prince dump his "narcissistic, shallow, selfish" sister.
We've had the seething, sniping, bitter, twisted and equally estranged half-sister Samantha spitting cruel bile about Meghan to anyone who will stick a few dollars in her grubby little pocket. Only today, she's launched a fresh attack, spewing away about her "right" to trash talk Meghan.
And now we've had the father of the bride caught with his greedy snout in the paparazzi trough, cashing in on his daughter's wedding with staged photos that were sold around the world.
As best-selling romantic novelist Lisa Kleypas said: "Weddings are never about the bride and groom, weddings are public platforms for dysfunctional families."
I just never thought the day would come when a family marrying INTO the royal family would be more dysfunctional than the royal family itself.
But here we are.
Unlike many seem to, I have little sympathy for Thomas Markle.
There's absolutely no excuse for what he did in taking money from a paparazzo to stage those photos.
Not least because in doing so, he made Kensington Palace look utterly ridiculous.
Prince Harry's own communications director sent out stern warnings to the media ordering them to back off Thomas Markle after seeing the photos and wrongly assuming he'd been the victim of a cruel invasion of privacy.
In fact, Mr Markle was invading his own privacy – for a big fat cheque.
Now, you might think he'd have learned his lesson, kept his head down and tried to rescue the last remnants of his dignity – if only for the sake of his poor daughter.
And you would be wrong…
Instead, Mr Markle's doubled down on his idiocy.
Since the Mail on Sunday exposed his cringe-making sham, he's been sharing his thoughts on an almost hourly basis with TMZ – a fine showbiz website, but not previously noted for their expertise on the inner workings of British royalty.
First, he told them he was mortified by the embarrassment of the story.
Then he claimed he'd had a heart attack last week, so wouldn't be attending the wedding.
Yesterday, Mr Markle was back with more exclusives; he'd changed his mind and wanted to be at the "historic" wedding.
Then, last night, he told TMZ he now needed urgent heart surgery, so wouldn't be able to go after all.
TMZ, perfectly understandably, has splashed these juicy revelations across its site and generated huge clicks and attention for itself in the process.
As a former tabloid editor, I commend their brilliant news-breaking journalism. They've got the whole world waiting with bated breath for details of their next conversation with Meghan's dad.
But also as a former tabloid editor, I am utterly incredulous as to why Thomas Markle is continuing to collude with tabloid reporters?
And I'm even more incredulous as to what the hell Kensington Palace is playing at in letting him?
The Palace staff has completely and shamefully lost control of the narrative of this wedding.
From the moment it was announced, they should have taken immediate steps to ensure Meghan's family were protected from the inevitable massive media attention heading their way.
It doesn't take a genius to work out that when a handsome British Prince marries a beautiful American actress, global press interest is going to be off the charts.
Yet Thomas Markle, currently the world's most famous father-of-the-bride, has been left to fend for himself 8000 miles away.
So he's made his own decisions as to how to handle the media, aided and abetted by his ghastly daughter Samantha, and they have turned out disastrously.
Why on earth didn't Kensington Palace either send people to Mexico to advise him, or fly Mr Markle to London? It's not as if Harry and Meghan can't afford to put him up for a few weeks – they're both rich and live in a giant palace full of spare rooms and servants.
(Harry hasn't even bothered to meet his future-in-law – how weird is that? And now won't be able to at all before he makes the poor man's daughter his wife.)
The result of this farcical incompetence is that Meghan's had to spend the most stressful week of her life with a hundred times more stress than she could have ever imagined.
I imagine she's been utterly distraught at her father's conduct.
There have been reports of her tearfully begging him on the phone to change his mind and walk her down the aisle.
What a terrible situation for any bride to find herself in.
I also imagine that Harry's been utterly furious.
For someone who hates the paparazzi and tabloids to see his soon-to-be father-in-law in cahoots with the paparazzi and tabloids will have enraged the headstrong young Prince beyond belief.
On the other hand he might reflect that if he and his big brother hadn't been so controlling and privacy obsessed, constantly warning the press not to 'intrude' on Meghan's family then Mr Markle's collusion with said press would never have been so embarrassing.
This will be his, and the Palace's worst nightmare: a major player in the biggest day of his life going rogue.
Perhaps things will sort themselves out by Saturday but I doubt it.
From the sound of things, the only member of Meghan's entire family who will be there is her mother, who is also the one that's so far kept her mouth shut and behaved with decorum.
That fact alone would fill me with deep concern if I were the royals.
Who ARE these Markles?
What further mayhem are they going to wreak, especially now they've all been snubbed from the wedding?
Hell, as we've already seen, hath no fury like an estranged relative scorned.
I don't think Harry and Meghan can escape some blame here.
By excluding from their 600-strong guest-list all of Meghan's family – many of whom have only said nice things about her and the wedding - and some of her oldest friends, they're surely creating an even bigger problem down the road?
Sometimes, a wedding is a good chance to settle old grievances, rather than cement them.
They're now going to have a lot more disgruntled Markles bristling with anger at being snubbed, especially when they see celebrities like the Beckhams sitting in 'their' seats in the church.
So the Markle reality show will roll un-edifyingly on, and the Palace appears worryingly impotent and incompetent in its efforts to control the tidal wave of tacky titillation cascading from their lips.
As for how all this washes up, my heart hopes Harry and Meghan will brush off the wedding chaos and live the fairy-tale happily ever after.
My head, though, views with mounting concern the wildly erratic behaviour of the Markles, and I find myself murmuring: "There may be trouble ahead…."
The new free open-air saltwater pool is already proving popular.