Princess Eugenie, 28-year-old daughter of Prince Andrew and ninth in line to the throne as one of the Queen’s granddaughters, introduced a literary touch to her wedding on Friday at St George’s Chapel in Windsor to her boyfriend of eight years, Jack Brooksbank, 32, brand ambassador for the Tequila drinks company.
The venue and the circumstances encouraged comparison with the wedding five months ago of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, now rebranded as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.
The latter was a more high profile affair, not least because Prince Harry is sixth in line to the throne and also because he was marrying a mixed race American actress who was divorced.
Their wedding was broadcast live on BBC TV to tens of millions across the world. When the BBC refused to repeat the exercise with Eugenie and Jack, the baton was picked up by a commercial channel, ITV.
But Eugenie showed a touch of class in two respects. First, she got her sister and maid of honour, Beatrice, two years her senior, to read a passage from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby because its protagonist, Jay Gatsby, has a smile which apparently reminds her of her own Jack.
In another respect, Eugenie showed character by asking for the back of her wedding dress, designed by Peter Pilotto and Christopher De Vos — they founded the British label Peter Pilotto — to be left exposed. This was to show off a scar from an operation she had when she was 12 to correct curvature of her spine. It involved the insertion of a metal rod. Ahead of the wedding, the princess spoke of the importance of showing “people your scars”.
Speaking to ITV’s This Morning, she said having a dress with a low back was a “lovely way to honour the people who looked after me (in hospital) and a way of standing up for young people who also go through this”.
Eugenie wore the Greville Emerald Kokoshnik Tiara loaned to her by the Queen, who has to be even handed in her treatment of her grandchildren. Eugenie read The Great Gatsby soon after meeting Jack on the ski slopes of Verbier in Switzerland in 2010.
“One particular passage in which Jay Gatsby is described reminded her immediately of Jack,” the wedding pamphlet explained.
“She decided that she wanted to eventually let Jack know how much those words had brought him to mind. That is why they have a special place in today’s wedding service.”
Princess Beatrice read the passage: “He smiled understandingly — much more than understandingly. It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it that you may come across four or five times in life.
“It faced — or seemed to face — the whole eternal world for an instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favour. It understood you just as far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself, and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey.
“Precisely at that point it vanished — and I was looking at an elegant young rough-neck, a year or two over thirty, whose elaborate formality of speech just missed being absurd. Some time before he introduced himself I’d got a strong impression that he was picking his words with care.”
As Beatrice read the passage, cameras captured Eugenie smiling at Jack.
David Conner, Dean of Windsor, said in his address to the wedding service congregation: “Well, a few years have passed and Eugenie and Jack come here today to smile on each other, and to offer each other something like ‘eternal reassurance’ and the promise of an ‘irresistible prejudice’ in each other’s favour.”
It has been claimed that when Eugenie first applied to Newcastle University to read English, she was rejected by an admissions officer who did not realise she was a member of the royal family.
Eugenie was hastily offered an alternative course in English literature, history of art and politics and graduated in 2012 with highly creditable 2:1.
She now works as a director at the contemporary art gallery Hauser & Wirth in London.
Unlike Meghan, who was given away by Prince Charles, Eugenie was given away in the conventional manner by her father, who is divorced from his wife, Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York. The couple are said to be the best of friends and share the same house.
Some 40 members of the royal family, led by the Queen and Prince Philip, were present. In the chapel were the Prince of Wales, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.
William and Kate’s children, Prince George and Princess Charlotte, took part in the ceremony. Jack chose his brother, Thomas, as best man.
Celebrities among the 850 guests in the chapel included Hollywood actresses Liv Tyler and Demi Moore, supermodels Kate Moss, Naomi Campbell and Cara Delevingne, singers Ricky Martin, Ellie Goulding and James Blunt, actor Stephen Fry, artist Tracey Emin, pop star Robbie Williams, comedian Jimmy Carr and David Emanuel, who designed Princess Diana’s wedding dress.
Around 1,200 members of the public selected by ballot listened to a live broadcast in the castle grounds, and thousands watched outside in extremely windy conditions.
After their wedding and a couple of shy kisses for the cameras, the newly weds took a carriage ride through Windsor — as Harry and Meghan had done.