Well. WE ARE PLEASED. “Quite tolerable,” as my dad would have said, with classic Brit understatement. Jack Brooksbank was more swoony: When Eugenie got to him, he reportedly whispered, “Oh, my heart,” which is just delicious.
This dress looks utterly wonderful on Eugenie. She is radiant. I’m so pleased for her, because for all the wisecracks you see everywhere about how this is the junior-varsity royal wedding and nobody really cares, I was genuinely sort of nervous that nobody in the town would turn up for it. There isn’t that enduring fondness for her, or for Fergie and Andrew, that there is for the Harry and William wing of the family. Plus, the Sussex wedding cast a long shadow; doing another in the same location not even six months later was chancey. And then there’s the whole thing about how overblown the costs had allegedly gotten, and hints that Fergie and Andrew were keen to outdo the others… well, the focus all got away from the bride, a bit, and so I’m delighted Eugenie brought it right back to where it should be.
Somehow, I had missed the fact that Eugenie had scoliosis, which was corrected via an eight-hour operation when she was twelve. The commentators discussed this at length before the wedding, outlining her charitable work along those avenues and interviewing a dancer she’s befriended who overcame similar surgery, and that all turned out to be very prescient: Eug specifically requested a low-backed dress, which means her slim surgical scar was visible. That’s a big thing in her life, and clearly a cause dear to her; obviously she might just have wanted to wear a dress with a deeper back, but I think overcoming that kind of surgery at a young age is probably a source of pride for her, and if it brings attention to her work along those lines, then even better. It made the dress design feel super personal.
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