Princess Eugenie marries wine merchant Jack Brooksbank
QUEEN Elizabeth’s granddaughter Princess Eugenie married wine merchant Jack Brooksbank at Windsor Castle yesterday in front of celebrities and Britain’s senior royals including Prince Harry and his wife Meghan who wed at the same venue in May.
Eugenie, 28, younger daughter of the queen’s third child, Prince Andrew, and his ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, tied the knot with Mr Brooksbank, 32, in a traditional ceremony in the castle’s 15th century St George’s Chapel.
It was the same setting as Prince Harry and Meghan’s wedding in May, and the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, as the couple are now known, were among the starstudded congregation.
The 92-year-old Queen and her husband Philip, 97, who has retired from official engagements, were joined by other royals and celebrities including Hollywood stars Liv Tyler and Demi Moore, models Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell and singer Ellie Goulding.
Princess Eugenie’s dress, by Peter Pilotto and Christopher De Vos of the London-based label Peter Pilotto, had a low back to reveal scars from surgery she underwent to correct scoliosis when she was 12.
“It’s a lovely way to honour the people who looked after me and a way of standing up for young people who also go through this,” she told ITV’s This Morning ahead of the wedding.
The ceremony was conducted by the Dean of Windsor David Conner, and Princess Eugenie’s elder sister, Princess Beatrice, the maid of honour, read an extract from the F Scott Fitzgerald novel The Great Gatsby which the bride had read after meeting her future husband in the Swiss ski resort of Verbier in 2010.
“One particular passage in which Jay Gatsby is described reminded her immediately of Jack,” Mr Conner said. “She decided she wanted eventually to let Jack know how much those words had brought him to mind.”
Princess Eugenie is a director at London’s Hauser & Wirth art gallery, and Mr Brooksbank owns a wine wholesale business and is European brand manager for Casamigos Tequila, which was cofounded by US actor George Clooney.