Huge cost of Eugenie’s wedding upsets Brits
The Brits are moaning this week – nothing new there – about the cost of Princess Eugenie’s wedding after the Royal decided to include a rather expensive addition.
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The Brits are moaning this week – nothing new there – about the cost of Princess Eugenie’s wedding.
It has been revealed Eugenie’s big day will cost taxpayers $3.5 million for policing the event, after she decided to include a carriage ride through the streets of Windsor.
Eugenie, 28, is tying the knot with fiance Jack Brooksbank on October 12 at St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, the same venue as Prince Harry and Meghan Markle wed in May.
But while nobody minded the security costs of what turned out to be the best royal wedding for decades, the British public is being a little less benevolent about what they deem “a minor Royal”. Bit harsh – she is a princess after all and Harry and Meghan’s security spend was reported to have been between $3.5 and $7 million.
Windsor is where Eugenie’s family lives and where she went to school, so it’s hardly surprising the bride would want to wed in her local church (albeit one owned by Nana Queen). And you could argue that considering Windsor hotels and businesses have never had it so good, enjoying a sell-out in May and a booking bonanza ever since, maybe the price of ensuring the only hitch on Eugenie’s big day is down the aisle isn’t unreasonable.
But still it hasn’t stopped the whingeing. “In these times of heightened security risks it is irresponsible for a minor member of the Royal Family to have a high-profile, very public wedding,” said Emma Dent Coad, Labour MP for Kensington. “This may be the time to review the role and cost of minor royals.”
As for nobody caring about her wedding, that might change when they take a look at her rumoured guest list.
Because while Eugenie doesn’t carry out any official royal duties and famously has to work for a living as an associate director of an art gallery, that means she can invite whomever she pleases to her nuptials. And who she pleases are VIPs.
Expected to be heading to the chapel in October are royal faves George and Amal Clooney (Jack, 31, is a UK representative for George’s tequila brand Casamigos), Cindy Crawford and Rande Gerber, Elton John, Cara Delevingne, Kate Moss, Ellie Goulding, James Blunt, Karlie Kloss, Suki Waterhouse, Robbie Williams and wife Ayda Field, whose daughter Theodora Rose will be a flower girl.
Eugenie and her sister Beatrice were keen to portray themselves as normal young women in a British Vogue interview this month.
“We are young women trying to build careers and have personal lives, and we’re also princesses and doing all of this in the public eye,” Beatrice said, with Eugenie adding, “We’re real.”
But if the guest list of her wedding is anything to go by, it’s totally unreal.
The only slight problem is Eugenie has declared she wants to make her wedding plastic-free, telling Vogue, “My whole house is anti-plastic now — and Jack and I want our wedding to be like that as well.”
Did anyone tell the invitees? Looking at some of the faces on her guest list, that might be a slight issue.