Newlyweds Princess Beatrice and Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi’s manage to bring the fun to low-key reception
A bouncy castle, glamping pods and a pop-up pub named after Prince Andrew: Newlyweds Princess Beatrice and Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi’s manage to bring the fun to low-key reception
- Princess Beatrice and Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi enjoyed a low-key reception
- Couple invited 14 friends to a party in a marquee in the garden of Royal Lodge
- It featured speciality cocktails, a bouncy castle, Indian-style tent and a jukebox
By Emer Scully For Mailonline and Emily Andrews Royal Editor For The Mail On Sunday
Published: 18:37 EDT, 18 July 2020 | Updated: 19:09 EDT, 18 July 2020
Newlyweds Princess Beatrice and Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi danced until the early hours with a small group of friends inside a pop-up pub before they spent their wedding night in a glamping pod, it has been revealed.
The couple dubbed the marquee The Duke of York and filled it with sofas, a jukebox, draft beer and a dartboard.
Some 14 friends were invited to the celebration outside the Royal Lodge after the intimate ceremony at the Royal Chapel of All Saints in Windsor on Friday.
A friend of the newlyweds told The Sun: ‘I heard that everyone had a great night. It was totally relaxed.
‘There was a bit of dancing into the early hours with the jukebox blazing away.’
Princess Beatrice and Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi pictured after their wedding at the Royal Chapel of All Saints in Windsor on Friday
Vans were seen pulling into the grounds of the Royal Lodge ahead of the celebration on Friday night. The van on the left is emblazoned with ‘ready steady bounce’
Friends started arriving at the party from 5pm on Friday and many stayed the night in glamping pods.
The party-loving Yorks ensured a high-spirited reception, featuring speciality cocktails, bespoke catering, an exquisitely decorated Indian-style tent and a bouncy castle.
Beatrice was said to be ‘thrilled and super-excited’, telling a friend: ‘It’s been such a whirlwind.’
The pop-up bar was delivered to Prince Andrew’s home two months ago and has been enjoyed by his family during coronavirus lockdown.
Attached to the side of the kitchen garden cottage in the grounds, the marquee and attachments cost £500-a-week to hire.
Beatrice, 31, wore both a tiara and vintage dress generously lent to her by her grandmother to the ‘secret’ ceremony.
The princess and Edo were due to tie the knot at the Chapel Royal of St James’s Palace, in London, on 29 May.
Their ceremony was postponed due to Covid-19 and no new date was given by the palace at the time.
Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip stand alongside Beatrice and Edo outside The Royal Chapel of All Saints at Royal Lodge, Windsor, after their wedding
Instead the couple chose to have an intimate ceremony attended by just ‘close family’, according to a statement released by Buckingham Palace.
The bride’s parents, Prince Andrew and the Duchess of York, as well as her sister Princess Eugenie, 30, are thought to have been included.
Beatrice became a stepmother to Edo’s four-year-old son Christopher, known as Wolfie, who was pageboy and best man.
The Queen has now watched six of her eight grandchildren wed.
It was the first Royal wedding behind closed doors for 235 years and the first ‘public’ engagement for the Duke of Edinburgh in a year. The 99-year-old last appeared at Lady Gabriella Windsor’s wedding last May.
Queen Elizabeth II arriving at the Odeon in London’s Leicester Square for the Lawrence of Arabia film premiere on December 10, 1962 (left). The Queen is wearing the same Peau De Soie taffeta dress by Norman Hartnell that was worn by Beatrice on Friday (right)
The photographs were released on Saturday to ensure they did not overshadow the ceremony on Friday to confer a knighthood on Captain Tom Moore, the former Army officer who raised £33 million for charity in a sponsored walk leading up to his 100th birthday in April.
Some have speculated that concerns over social distancing is why the wedding was held in secret so as to avoid crowds of well-wishers gathering nearby and potentially breaching government guidelines.
Family friends insisted the secretive nature of the wedding was not down to Andrew, who is noticeably absent from the official photographs, and his issues over the Epstein scandal.
The FBI wants to question him over his close friendship with the convicted paedophile, who killed himself while awaiting trial on further charges last summer.
Pressure on Andrew, 60, intensified following the arrest in the US of his close friend, Epstein’s ex-girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell.
However, the sources said the secrecy was explained by Beatrice and Edo’s desire for a quiet, private ceremony and the fact they did not want to overshadow Sir Tom’s knighting at Windsor.
But Dario Mapelli Mozzi, Edo’s cousin once removed, told the Mail: ‘We heard it was postponed to next year but that was clearly to keep it secret. Maybe they did it now to be sure that the Queen would be there.
‘Or perhaps because of the problems with her father they didn’t want to go overboard with publicity in case anyone criticised them.’
Sarah Ferguson and Edo’s mum Nicola Williams-Ellis leapt into action as soon as the Government hinted last month that weddings would soon be permitted again.
Reverend Anthony Ball, Canon of Westminster. in Westminster Abbey with Princess Beatrice’s wedding bouquet on Friday
During lockdown, Beatrice had been staying with Edo and her future mother-in-law in the £2 million Cotswold house Nicola shares with sculptor husband David, Edo’s stepfather.
The young couple were ‘desperately sad’ that plans for a wedding at St James’s Chapel Royal in May with 150 guests and a reception at Buckingham Palace had to be cancelled, and resolved to marry ‘whenever possible’.
But they had only three weeks to organise caterers and florists, and for the Queen’s dresser Angela Kelly to help remodel and refit the 1960s Norman Hartnell evening gown to serve as a wedding dress.
Meanwhile, Canon Paul Wright, sub-dean of the Chapel Royal, and Canon Martin Poll, the Queen’s domestic chaplain, who officiated on Friday, hurriedly arranged the special wedding licence from the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Princess Beatrice has married Italian property developer Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi in a secret ceremony at Windsor Castle. Pictured, a photo released to announce their engagement
Guests were sworn to secrecy, with overnight accommodation provided at Royal Lodge, Andrew and Fergie’s grand Windsor home.
Edo’s sister Natalia, 38, and her husband Tod Yeomans, 36, arrived with their two children Coco and Freddie on Thursday afternoon for a quick rehearsal.
Edo’s father, Olympic skier Count Alessandro Mapelli Mozzi, flew in from France, and maid of honour Eugenie, 30, joined the ‘rehearsal dinner’ with husband Jack Brooksbank.
Beatrice and Edo broke with tradition by spending the night before the wedding together.
The secluded Chapel of All Saints is opposite Royal Lodge, so Prince Andrew walked the bride to the church and down the aisle. The Queen and Prince Philip had slipped in a through a side entrance, thus maintaining social distancing.
The bride’s grandparents the Queen, 94, and the Duke of Edinburgh, 99, who have both been in isolation at Windsor Castle, were in attendance and appeared in excellent spirits as they left the service, pictured
The church was decorated with pink and white delphiniums, roses, waxflower and hydrangeas from Windsor Great Park.
Beatrice carried a bouquet of trailing jasmine, pale pink and cream sweet peas, royal porcelain ivory spray roses, pink O’Hara garden roses, pink waxflower, baby pink astilbe and sprigs of myrtle. During the 30-minute service,
Sarah Ferguson and Mrs Williams-Ellis read the bride andgroom’s favourite poems: I Carry You In My Heart by E E Cummings and Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116.
There was no singing, but a selection of music was played together with the National Anthem.
Later, wedding photographs were taken, including two released to the media yesterday. Neither features Andrew.
Prince Andrew and the Duchess of York both attended as the service was held in the grounds of their home. Pictured, Prince Andrew on Wednesday
The chapel is on the grounds of the Royal Lodge, where the Duke and Duchess of York have been staying in lockdown
The wedding breakfast was in a blue-and-white themed open-sided luxury Indian tent at Royal Lodge.
Society caterers Spook London provided canapes and a sit-down lunch with wine and champagne.
Their £110-a-head wedding menu includes cured sea trout with capers, dill and lemon, chorizo and ricotta salad with toasted quinoa and fillet steak.
Andrew and Edo gave speeches and the newlyweds enjoyed their first night together as man and wife in a special glamping pod.
Flowers from well-wishers were seen being unloaded from vans after the wedding, as Buckingham Palace confirmed no reception or other event was taking place
Edo and Bea are not thought to have any immediate honeymoon plans and hope to celebrate their wedding later in the year with a ‘huge party’.
A friend said: ‘They are just delighted they could marry in front of their family and closest friends.
It was particularly special that the Queen and Duke could come.’
Prince Andrew was yesterday seen driving away from Royal Lodge.
He was wearing a rugby-style jersey emblazoned with the Order of the Garter motto: Honi soit qui maly pense – meaning ‘May he be shamed who thinks badly of it’.
GLITTERING HISTORY OF BEA’S DIAMOND TIARA
The Queen Mary diamond fringe tiara
The Queen allowed her 31-year-old granddaughter, Princess Beatrice, to wear the same tiara she wore at her own wedding in 1947.
The Queen Mary diamond fringe tiara, fashioned in 1919 from a necklace given to the current Queen’s grandmother by Queen Victoria, is a treasured heirloom.
It was lent to the Queen, then Princess Elizabeth, as her ‘something borrowed’. But two hours before the ceremony, a hairdresser securing Elizabeth’s veil with the tiara snapped part of it.
The tiara was rushed to maker Garrard’s London workshop where it was hurriedly welded back together and returned just in time.
The tiara was also loaned to Princess Anne for her wedding to Mark Phillips in 1973, but has rarely been seen in public since.
PRECIOUS HEIRLOOM: Queen Mary wearing the tiara in 1926
The tiara was also worn by the Queen (left) in 1947 and Princess Anne (right) in 1973