Brits brace for royal wedding

Five months on from Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s fairytale nuptials, the time has come for “the other” royal wedding — the one no one seems to want to pay for or watch.

When Queen Elizabeth II’s granddaughter Princess Eugenie walks down the aisle on Friday in Windsor Castle to marry Jack Brooksbank, a “commoner” with blue-blood friends, the critics will be out.

For Britain is still gaga over Meghan, the glamorous US actress who married the queen’s grandson in a Windsor wedding watched by the masses in Britain and around the world in May.

Princess Eugenie of York, along with her 30-year-old sister Beatrice, are by contrast unhappily famous for wearing peculiar hats, with the flamboyant numbers they picked for Prince William’s wedding making a particularly lasting impression.

The 28-year-old princess Eugenie, is the ninth in the long line of succession. One public petition protesting the wedding’s cost — the security bill is estimated at £2 million (Dh9.6 million) — dismissed her as a “minor royal”.

The BBC reportedly caused a Buckingham Palace ruckus by refusing to broadcast this one live, fearing a ratings flop.