Bea Has Her Big Day At Last

It was all kept very hush-hush but the princess finally got to exchange vows with Edo in an intimate ceremony tinged with nostalgia

- Nici De Wet

It was the wedding of a senior member of the British royal family, unlike anything the modern world has ever experienced.

There were no crowds clamoring to catch a glimpse of the bride and groom, no parade of pedigreed guests arriving at the church, no banks of photographers jostling for prime position.

In fact, few people outside the couple’s tight-knit inner circle knew anything about it at all.

Princess Beatrice (31) and Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi (37) tied the knot under the radar, far from the prying eyes of the public, observant of the regulations of Covid-19, mindful of her grandmother’s schedule – and well aware that any big-scale affair would’ve cast the spotlight back on her disgraced father.

A veil of secrecy cloaked their ceremony, making it the first royal wedding to be held behind closed doors since 1785 – when the Prince of Wales, later King George IV, covertly married Maria Fitzherbert.

Yet what it lacked in pomp and pizzazz was more than made up for in intimacy and nostalgia, from Beatrice’s choice of outfit – a dress and tiara borrowed from her beloved grandmother – to the wedding venue, a tiny chapel in Windsor where Her Majesty worships most Sundays. The low-key nuptials, with only 20 guests present, were believed to have been hastily thrown together after coronavirus rules surrounding weddings in the UK were relaxed somewhat in recent weeks.

Another major reason for the haste was to accommodate one very important guest: the queen.