Inside a royal love story

Build-up to Friday’s ceremony marred by BBC snub and concern over bill

He was working as a waiter in a cocktail bar. She was sixth in line to the British throne. But it was no rags-toriches story for Jack Brooksbank, who is set to marry Princess Eugenie at Windsor Castle on Friday in a $5.2 million two-day extravaganza shaping up to be bigger than the May wedding of her cousin Prince Harry and his new wife Meghan Markle.

The event has been tarred with claims of a misuse of taxpayer spending for a non-working royal, followed by the embarrassment of failing to secure public service broadcaster BBC to televise the event.

And then there’s the question of how to solve a problem like the mother of the bride, aka Sarah “Fergie” Ferguson, which has long haunted the monarchy.

The couple’s love story started in 2010 when they were introduced during a skiing holiday in Verbier, Switzerland, where Eugenie’s father Prince Andrew owns a ski chalet.

Aged 24 at the time, Brooksbank had given university a miss, and for work was waiting tables and serving drinks at Devonshire Terrace, a bar and restaurant near Liverpool St in London.

The Queen’s granddaughter Eugenie, then aged 20, was studying English literature, art history and politics at Newcastle University.

It was “love at first sight”, Brooksbank said during a televised interview with the BBC following the couple’s engagement in January.

Eugenie is said to have admired his work ethic.

“She is very uncomplicated,” a source told the Daily Express.

“She’s a doer, a worker, as is Jack. They are very suited.

“Jack’s always worked hard. He chose not to go to university so that he could get on the career ladder and Eugenie loved that.

“She didn’t care at all that he was a waiter. She might be a princess, but Eugenie comes with few airs and graces.”

Brooksbank was known as

“barman Jack” among Chelsea partygoers.

But despite a working-class job, he was no working-class man.

Brooksbank is said to have already mingled in royal circles before he met his wifeto-be. He was a friend of Prince Harry.

The 32-year-old is a descendant of the Brooksbank baronets and reportedly a distant cousin of Eugenie’s. (Her mother is the greatgreat-granddaughter of Lady Julia Coke, who is the daughter of Jack’s great-great-grandfather, Thomas Coke.)

His parents are 68-year-old George Brooksbank, a chartered accountant and company director, and his wife Nicola, 64.

He has a younger brother, Thomas, 29, a possible candidate for best man.

Brooksbank was educated at Stowe School in Buckingham, where boarding fees are almost $23,600 a term.

Since 2001, his family’s address has been an apartment in a gated community in the southwest London borough of Wandsworth, not far from Battersea Park.

After working at pubs and bars, Brooksbank is said to have been poached by businessman and nightclub owner Piers Adam and employed at the Markham Inn.

He went on to manage Adam’s Mayfair nightclub Mahiki, a favourite among royalty and celebrities.

In August 2016, he set up Jack Brooksbank Limited, a wine wholesaler, and is also an ambassador for Casamigos tequila, owned by George Clooney and Cindy Crawford’s husband Rande Gerber, who are both expected to be guests at the wedding.

Brooksbank has been described by friends as “kind and selfless” and a perfect match for Eugenie, now 28.

But he hasn’t entirely avoided scandal.

In 2013, photos of Brooksbank touching the breasts of a naked stripper while blindfolded and covered in candle wax during his 21st birthday celebrations were leaked online.

The Sun on Sunday reported the story but said the photos were “too raunchy to publish”. They were removed shortly after Buckingham Palace was alerted to their existence.

Eugenie (now ninth-in-line to the throne after the births of her cousin Prince William’s children George, Charlotte and Louis) is the second child of Andrew and Fergie, Duke and Duchess of York.

Their firstborn, Princess Beatrice, 30, will be maid of honour at the wedding.

Eugenie’s parents divorced when she was 6 years old and despite public criticism and stories of royal shunning of her mother, she has described her parents as “the best divorced couple”.

Her childhood was also plagued with health issues — at age 12 she underwent back surgery at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital in London to correct scoliosis — but made a full recovery despite two 30cm titanium rods in her back.

She boarded at Marlborough College in Wiltshire, where term fees are $25,000, and undertook a gap year before attending university.

In 2013, she moved to New York City to work for the online auction firm Paddle8 as a benefit auctions manager but despite living in different countries, her relationship with Brooksbank flourished.

There are said to have been several Skype calls between the pair keeping it alive.

In July 2015, Eugenie moved back to London to work for the Hauser & Wirth art gallery as an associate director and was promoted to director in 2017.

In January, Brooksbank proposed

at sunset in front of a volcano overlooking a lake during a Nicaraguan holiday.

“The lake was so beautiful,” Eugenie told the BBC.

“The light was just a special light I had never seen. I actually said this is an incredible moment, and then he popped the question, which was really surprising even though we have been together seven years. I was over the moon.

“[It was a] complete surprise. But it was the perfect moment, we couldn’t be happier.”

The couple live in Ivy Cottage, within the grounds of Kensington Palace, which is also inhabited by Prince William, Kate Middleton and their three children (Apartment 1A) and Meghan and Harry (Nottingham Cottage).

Princess Eugenie does not carry out public duties — like the Queen or her cousins — and receives no allowance from the Privy Purse.

She undertakes minimal public engagements but when she does, they are usually connected with the charities she supports, including the Teenage Cancer Trust and Children in Crisis.

There isn’t expected to be as much family drama as on the Markle scale (no half-sisters pining for an invite) but Fergie is still an awkward thorn in the royal family’s side.

She was present as all the finer details of the wedding were discussed at Balmoral over the summer.

It was at the Scottish castle that Fergie came down to breakfast one morning in 1992 to see photos of her toes being sucked by her American “financial adviser” John Bryan splashed across the front pages.

She was cast as a royal outsider and has since fought to be accepted back into the Windsor fold.

Yet she’s not shied from the limelight — the Duchess was keen to promote her daughter’s big day via the BBC’s 7pm One Show, where she jokingly referred to herself as MOB, or mother of the bride.

She declared that she and Brooksbank had bonded over Casamigos tequila, saying: “He’ll just hand me the tequila and say ‘Come on, mother-in-law, down it’.”

The couple may have cringed when the ever-enthusiastic Duchess declared she was looking forward to becoming a grandmother, insisting:

“They are thrilled because I write children’s books and I’m a child, I haven’t grown up.”

And after a series of gushing social media posts, in which she referred to Brooksbank as her “son, brother and best friend”, she wrote a letter published in celebrity magazine Hello!

“Dearest Eugenie and Jack The Man, when you walk into a room, you bring smiles to the faces of all who meet you,” she wrote.

Despite criticism over other “cringey behaviour”, like selling juicers on shopping channel QVC, the woman once dubbed the Duchess of Pork by the British tabloids may be experiencing a royal renaissance.

She was at Balmoral when the Queen was guest of honour at Princess Beatrice’s 30th birthday party in August. The 92-year-old Queen has reportedly made it clear to courtiers that orders from her beloved granddaughter’s mother are to be respected.

And although Fergie was left off the guest list for the evening reception of Meghan and Harry’s wedding, she is expected to be seated alongside her ex and Princess Beatrice for the ceremony at St George’s Chapel, and treated as “part of the family” at the champagne reception the Queen is hosting afterwards at St George’s Hall.

She’ll also be at the black-tie reception at Royal Lodge, the Windsor home she still shares with Prince Andrew despite their 1996 divorce.

The Queen’s cousin, party planner Lady Elizabeth Anson, is thought to be involved in the Friday castle reception.

But Bentleys Entertainment is said to be organising the second festivalthemed wedding event on the Saturday afternoon — very much under Fergie’s direction.

It is the same company Victoria and David Beckham used when they married at Luttrellstown Castle in Ireland.

Fergie’s legendary bargaining skills, which have prompted some behind palace gates to dub her the “queen of the freebie”, have no doubt been put to good use.

Quite whether the British public share Fergie’s enthusiasm for the nuptials remains to be seen.

Although Buckingham Palace insists it was inundated with more than 100,000 applications for the 1200 spectator spots within the walls of Windsor Castle, there was still plenty of hotel accommodation available this week, reported the Daily Telegraph.

And despite Prince Andrew’s best efforts, the BBC refused to televise the ceremony, saying it would be a ratings flop, according to the Mail on Sunday.

Broadcaster ITV has stepped in to broadcast the big day live instead.

Princess Eugenie is said to have invited 850 guests to St George’s Chapel, which outdoes Meghan and Harry’s 600 invitees.

Like the other royal couple, Eugenie and Jack will embark on a carriage ride to wave to well-wishers following the ceremony.

That will bump up the security bill to an estimated $3.9 million, swelling the cost to taxpayers to an estimated $5.2m. More than 18,000 people have signed a petition demanding no public money be spent on the event.

Last week, homeless people living on the streets around Windsor Castle were visited by police and offered the chance to have their sleeping bags and personal items locked up in storage for the day.

Thames Valley Police said people along the route will be searched but homeless people will not be removed forcibly.

Only time will tell whether the second biggest Windsor wedding of the year will meet the happy couple’s expectations.