Prince Andrew reportedly demanded that his daughter Princess Eugenie's wedding receive the same prominence as Prince Harry's wedding to Meghan Markle. According to royal biographer Robert Hardman, Andrew and his ex-wife Sarah were determined that Eugenie should have a comparable wedding to Harry, with live television coverage, a carriage procession, celebrity guests, and similar features. Andrew pushed for a full-scale royal wedding at Windsor Castle's St George's Chapel ahead of Eugenie's marriage in October 2018, and was determined for his daughter's ceremony to be bigger than Prince Harry's and Meghan Markle's.
Hardman wrote that the Queen happily agreed to Andrew's demands, noting that Eugenie and Jack Brooksbank had been thinking of marrying sooner but were content to let Harry and Meghan go first, in line with the royal pecking order. The extravagant wedding celebration, which included a two-day party with a festival and funfair theme the following day, is estimated to have cost around £2 million. The cost of policing the event was £2 million and was funded by taxpayers.
Status-conscious as ever, Prince Andrew and his ex-wife, Sarah, had been determined that Eugenie should have a comparable wedding to Harry, with live television coverage, a carriage procession, celebrity guests and so on, albeit in front of a smaller audience.
Princess Eugenie is not a working royal. It remains unknown what specific demands Andrew made to the Queen, how she personally felt about them, and the exact breakdown of the wedding costs.
The Queen happily agreed to Andrew's demands. After all, Eugenie and Jack had been patient. After a seven-year romance, they had been thinking of marrying sooner but had been content to let Harry and Meghan go first, in line with the royal pecking order (the hierarchy did not always work against Harry and Meghan, despite some of their subsequent complaints).