Princess Eugenie’s Wedding Weekend Has an Unusual Twist

Elise Taylor
Updated
New details have emerged about the upcoming royal wedding, which will include two days of festivities.

The last two royal weddings have followed a similar agenda: morning or early afternoon ceremony, carriage ride, a lunch, and then a black-tie evening reception. On Friday, October 12, Princess Eugenie of York and Jack Brooksbank will do the same. (Their reception location is the 30-room, 98-acre Royal Lodge on the Windsor Castle grounds, which is the residence of Eugenie’s father, Prince Andrew, Duke of York.) But this royal couple is making sure the festivities don’t stop there.

According to a report from the London Times, they’ve decided to have a wedding weekend, rather than just a day. On Saturday afternoon, they will also be having a “festival and funfair”–themed party on the Royal Lodge grounds. What exactly does that entail? “There will be dodgems and funfair rides, coconut shies, lots of food stalls, loads of cocktails, bloody Marys for the hangovers, and a festival vibe,” the Times reports. (Dodgems are bumper cars, while a coconut shy is a ball-throwing game.)

They aren’t the only high-profile couple to embrace a carnival vibe—Chiara Ferragni had a custom-made amusement park, including a Ferris wheel and carousel, at her wedding in Sicily. Vanity Fair also said that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle had burger and cotton candy stands for late-night snacks at their reception.

Eugenie and Brooksbank are enlisting Bentley’s Entertainments to orchestrate the informal affair. Bentley’s is a longtime party-planning favorite of the British royal family—the company also worked on weddings for Princess Anne’s children, Zara and Peter Phillips. Other royals have worked with Fait Accompli, who organized the wedding receptions for William and Kate, Harry and Meghan, and Pippa Middleton.

It may be too early to predict wedding trends for next year, but it looks like fair fetes is one to watch. After all, they now have the royal stamp of approval.

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