Andrew’s lavish ‘demand’ before Princess Eugenie’s wedding showed his true colours
Andrew’s lavish ‘demand’ before Princess Eugenie’s wedding showed his true colours
Many of the people who have met Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor in person over the years have noted how the former Duke of York was intensely preoccupied with his social standing. Royal staff, especially, recall how the man who was once second-in-line to the throne would routinely make unreasonable demands of his staff. Sources have described “maids being summoned from four floors down to open the curtains beside his bed,” and Wendy Berry, a royal housekeeper whose son also served at Buckingham Palace, states that Andrew viewed staff as ‘there to serve and not to question his actions’.
This fixation with rank was fully evident when Andrew’s daughter Princess Eugenie was preparing to wed marketing executive Jack Brooksbank. With their ceremony taking place just months following Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s marriage at St George’s Chapel, Windsor, Andrew made it plain that Eugenie warranted at least the equivalent degree of grandeur and spectacle. Andrew approached his mother, the late Queen Elizabeth II, to request that Eugenie’s wedding be televised live, with a comparable carriage procession to Harry and Meghan’s. Queen Elizabeth readily consented to these requests from her favoured son.
In his new book Elizabeth II, being serialised in the Daily Mail, royal biographer Robert Hardman stated: “Status-conscious as ever, Prince Andrew and his ex-wife, Sarah, had been determined that Eugenie should have a comparable wedding to Harry, with live television coverage, a carriage procession, celebrity guests and so on, albeit in front of a smaller audience.”
Hardman goes on: “The Queen happily agreed to Andrew’s demands. After all, Eugenie and Jack had been patient. After a seven-year romance, they had been thinking of marrying sooner but had been content to let Harry and Meghan go first, in line with the royal pecking order (the hierarchy did not always work against Harry and Meghan, despite some of their subsequent complaints).”
The lavish wedding celebrations, which comprised a two-day event — not merely a formal reception but a festival-and-funfair-themed party the following day — are estimated to have cost approximately £2 million. The 800 guests included a veritable who’s who of celebrities: Cara Delevingne, Naomi Campbell, James Blunt, Ellie Goulding, Demi Moore, and Kate Moss.
While the cost of the wedding itself is believed to have been met by Eugenie’s parents, the policing bill — a further £2 million — was met by the taxpayer
This huge expenditure attracted condemnation from anti-monarchist groups. Dani Beckett, vice-chair of Republic, argued that as Princess Eugenie is not a working royal, her wedding ought to have been regarded as a private occasion, with all costs borne by the couple themselves.
“No-one has forced her to have a carriage and a high-profile ceremony,” she said. “There are other ways she could have chosen to have had a less lavish wedding.”
The ceremony proceeded smoothly, yet certain superstitious onlookers identified a “bad omen” which they claimed predicted future tensions between Eugenie and her new spouse.
Attendees struggled against Storm Callum while entering the chapel. Numerous guests lost their hats to the fierce gusts. While it proved a somewhat awkward start to the occasion — with a page boy tumbling on the steps — the blustery conditions were interpreted by some as an ill sign for the couple’s union.
According to traditional beliefs, wind on one’s wedding day can represent future arguments. Eugenie and Jack truly faced a storm on their wedding day.
