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Princess Beatrice showed up in support of her cousin, Peter Phillips, at his wedding to Harriet Sperling, marking one of her most prominent royal appearances in months. The princess wore a green floral print Emilia Wickstead dress which she previously wore to Royal Ascot in 2024. The royal wedding marked what could be a small step for Beatrice and her sister Eugenie’s gradual return to public life. Once extremely socially active, the sisters have kept a low profile for most of this year as their parents have been embroiled in scandal.
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Edoardo held an umbrella open for his wife on a rainy Saturday.
Saturday’s wedding will be held at All Saints’ Church in this small Gloucestershire village in the Cotswolds. Phillips, 48, the eldest grandchild of the late Queen Elizabeth and the only son of Princess Anne, will marry the pediatric nurse and freelance writer, 45, in a private ceremony attended by several members of the royal family, including King Charles, Queen Camilla, the Prince and Princess of Wales, and the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh.
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Princess Beatrice in Emilia Wickstead.
Beatrice’s attendance was not a given. Her father, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, was stripped of his royal titles last year amid intense scrutiny over his friendship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. In February, the former Duke of York was arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office. He was released from custody the same day after several hours of questioning. The arrest made him the first royal to be arrested in almost 400 years. Thames Valley Police later made a public update at the end of May, saying the investigation was continuing and that the force was assessing reports that a woman was taken to Windsor in 2010 for sexual purposes. Andrew has always denied any wrongdoing.
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Beatrice also carried a butter yellow handbag and wore a matching headband.
Andrew and her mother, Sarah Ferguson, were also both asked to leave Royal Lodge, where they had been living for decades. Andrew now lives at Marsh Farm, a private cottage on the Sandringham estate, paid for by his brother, King Charles, while Ferguson’s permanent residency plans are unknown. After several weeks out of the public eye, she was most recently spotted at a ski resort in the Austrian Alps. However, both of Beatrice’s parents were present in December at the christening of her now one-year-old daughter, Athena.
Saturday’s appearance carried another significance regarding Beatrice. The last major royal wedding within the immediate Mountbatten-Windsor family was her own. Beatrice married Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi in July 2020 at the Royal Chapel of All Saints at Royal Lodge in Windsor in a ceremony kept deliberately small due to COVID-19 restrictions at the time. Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip were among the handful of guests present, and the bride wore one of her grandmother’s dresses with Queen Mary’s Diamond Fringe Tiara.
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Rachel King (she/her) is a news writer at Town & Country. Before joining T&C, she spent nearly a decade as an editor at Fortune. Her work covering travel and lifestyle has appeared in Forbes, Observer, Robb Report, Cruise Critic, and Cool Hunting, among others. Originally from San Francisco, she lives in New York with her wife, their daughter, and a precocious labradoodle. Follow her on Instagram at @rk.passport.