It's two royal weddings for the price of one as Windsor gears up for the big day... again

It is the curse of being the younger cousin in a big family. Sometimes, you just have to wait your turn. Such has been the lot of Princess Eugenie, who is said to have known she wanted to marry Jack Brooksbank months before Prince Harry announced his engagement last November, but “had to wait for Harry” before planning her own nuptials.

In the end, though, it seems to have worked out rather well for Jack and Eugie — Harry and Meghan have helpfully done a trial run for them. They’ve recced the chapel, given the carriage a spin and the reception room at Windsor Castle an airing.

Even George Clooney has had a chance to hone his skills as a bartender before their big day. In fact, all the bride really had to do was pick a dress (arguably, it would have been awkward to recycle Meghan’s Givenchy number, too) and order in a few hundred crates of her husband-to-be’s Casamigos tequila. 

Eugenie will have been anxiously preparing for her wedding day this week, ticking off the last to-dos: ‘1) Make sure Eamonn and Ruth still up for covering on Friday morn, ITV. 2) Check Mummy and Grandpa not sitting near each other. 3) Have a word with Robbie about order of service — still thinks he’s doing Angels after Andrea Bocelli’s set’.

But if it’s all been feeling a bit much for #Jeugenie, they really needn’t have looked any further than the Wikipedia entry for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s wedding. With the same venue, and many of the same guests, Friday's celebration is gearing up to be a lovely reminder of that glorious day in May, when Hollywood and British royalty mingled with James Corden and Tom Hardy’s shaved head in a tiny town in Berkshire. The local hotels should really have run a special — two royal weddings for the price of one. Here, we looks at some of the similarities and differences of the two big days...

The venue

Eugenie will become the second royal bride in six months to walk down the aisle at St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, when she gets married this morning at 11am. Presumably the enormous flower installations adorning the entrance to the 14th century chapel on May 19 will have wilted by now, so new decorations will have been created with the couple’s personal style in mind.

Though like Harry and Meghan, the pair are laying on a wedding of two halves, with the ceremony set to be a thoroughly traditional affair — unlike her cousin, Eugenie has even requested that all male guests wear morning suits to the chapel, presumably Harry felt it was a tall order to expect the American guests to get togged up in tails — before a more glamorous knees-up back at the Duke of York’s gaff in the evening (we’ll get onto Saturday’s funfair later). 

A quick set change will be required, however - no sooner as the service and morning reception (to be hosted by the Queen) are over, Windsor Castle will need to be transformed for an exhibition titled ‘A Royal Wedding: The Duke and Duchess of Sussex’, which opens in two weeks’ time. Golly. That’s got to smart a tiny bit. Moving swiftly on...

The guestlist

Never before had St George’s Chapel been so eclectically filled. The Clooneys and Serena Williams on one side. The royal family on the other. Granted, Jack and Eugenie’s wedding won’t have quite the same ratio of Californian star to aristocrat, but their rumoured guestlist makes for intriguing reading. The Clooneys are back (to be fair, understandably so — Jack works for George’s tequila brand).

There will be the usual bevy of blondes; Sam and Holly Branson, plus Harry’s ex girlfriends (it was Eugenie who reportedly set up Cressida Bonas with her cousin back in the day), and a couple of Delevingne sisters. Also in attendance will be Robbie Williams and Ayda Field; their daughter, Theo, will be among the bridesmaids. Whether or not Robbie’s presence was part of the deal with ITV to have This Morning televise the ceremony, we couldn’t possibly speculate.

Notably absent will be the Duchess of Cornwall, who will be at a harvest festival in Scotland, while Prince Philip is said to be planning to decide on the morning whether or not to go. But then, it’s nothing compared to what Meghan had to contend with when the Markle circus came to town; her father staying away and her extended family flying in to make a few bob on TV. Gosh that was fun.

Then there’s the public, 1200 of whom the couple have invited to share their day (well, within the Windsor Castle precinct, at a safe distance). A generous gesture which the Duke and Duchess of Sussex also extended to *cough* 2640 civilians at their own wedding. 

Oh, and Elton is bound to be there, too. 

The dress

“No meringue shoulders” — that’s the clearest hint we have had at what Eugenie’s wedding dress could look like. In an interview with The One Show, the princess said that she knew the look she wanted for her dress “straight away”. “I never thought I’d be the one who knew exactly what I like, but I’ve been pretty on top of it,” she said, adding in an interview with Vogue that she had chosen a British-based designer. Erdem, Vivienne Westwood and Stella McCartney are favourites, though Stella could be seen as a controversial choice given she was the designer Meghan chose for her evening look. 

Will Eugenie follow in her mother’s footsteps and have a ‘J’ imprinted on her train, in tribute to Fergie’s wedding to Prince Andrew in 1986, when she had a large ‘A’ trailing behind her down the aisle at Westminster Abbey? Of course, Meghan’s train featured a flower from every single Commonwealth country. Perhaps Eugenie could have a little monogram of every single bar on the Kings Road: JuJu, Bluebird, Tonteria. A touching tribute to her beloved, surely?   

The party

The couple are said to have hired Peregrine Armstrong-Jones, owner of upmarket party planners Bentleys Entertainment (who did the Beckhams’ wedding in 1999) to stage their reception which, unlike Harry and Meghan’s Frogmore House do, will be held at the Royal Lodge, Prince Andrew’s residence in Windsor Great Park. The Friday night festivities alone are reported to have cost around £100,000. Though there has been at least one nod to austerity, with guests set to travel between venues on minibuses. 

Ellie Goulding is a close friend of Eugenie’s (she is often seen holidaying with the princess and her sister Beatrice), so could well be one of the performers. Unless Eugenie has asked Harry to have a quiet word with Idris Elba and have him come back to DJ. 

And that’s before what some might see as the main event, the pièce de resistance — Funfair Saturday. Yes, in the midst of what is scheduled to be some pretty stormy weather, the royals and their guests are apparently going to be living it up on the dodgems and knocking back Bloody Mary’s to cure their hangovers. Perhaps Fergie and Prince Philip can settle some old scores over the coconut shy. 

The food

With guests ranging from Prince Charles to the cast of Suits, the food at Harry and Meghan’s evening reception covered all bases. There was a summery, English menu for the sit-down meal, said to have featured a potato and roe starter, roast chicken, and a wild strawberry and lemon verbena pudding. Later on, guests had their pick of street food stalls serving dirty burgers, bacon sandwiches, candyfloss and cocktails, including a spicy little ginger and rum number called ‘When Harry Met Meghan’. 

Eugenie and Jack’s traditional wedding breakfast, served after the ceremony, may well be a similar affair to the reception hosted by the Queen for Harry and Meghan, featuring 2018’s trendy “bowl food”. And Eugenie has, like Meghan, chosen a subtle update on the classic wedding cake, with a chocolate red velvet number being created by London-based baker, Sophie Cabot. 

But with Casamigos tequila presumably on tap, you’d imagine Jack and Eugenie might well follow suit and go Mexican to compliment the vats of margaritas they’re bound to be serving up. Tacos and caipirinhas at dawn it is, then. Chin, chin!