Princess Eugenie and Jack Brooksbank followed the wedding tradition of the groom not seeing the bride before the wedding!
To make sure their paths didn’t cross before they met at the altar, the royal couple stayed in separate places on Thursday night, the palace said.
Eugenie stayed at Royal Lodge, the royal residence of her father, Prince Andrew, and mother, Sarah Ferguson, in Windsor, while Jack stayed locally in Windsor.
Royal Lodge, which is just three miles south of Windsor Castle, was the Queen Mother’s residence from 1952 until her death in 2002. The property has 30 rooms and 21 acres of secluded gardens. Eugenie and Jack’s evening wedding reception on Friday will also be held at the picturesque Royal Lodge.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle also stayed in separate hotels the night before their wedding. Harry stayed at the Dorchester Collection’s Coworth Park in Windsor with his brother and best man, Prince William.
Meghan and her mother, Doria Ragland, stayed at Cliveden House Hotel, on the National Trust’s Cliveden Estate in Windsor. The two hotels are about a 30-minute drive (15 miles) from each other.
Eugenie and Jack will tie the knot in front of 800 guests at St. George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle on Friday. The couple, who have been dating for about seven years, got engaged while in Nicaragua in January.
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In a pre-wedding interview earlier this week, Eugenie recalled meeting Jack during a skiing vacation in Switzerland during college. Although Eugenie described an immediate connection, she also quickly questioned her future husband’s fashion choices.
“I thought, ‘What a silly hat!’ ” the 28-year-old royal said with a laugh of seeing Jack, 32, for the first time. “And I thought, ‘Who’s that?’”
She continued, “And then [looking at Jack], you came over and shook my hand and I was all butterflies and nervous.”
Eugenie also shared that she called her mother, Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York, that night to tell her about the new guy she had met.
Luckily, the royal didn’t have to wait long for it to be clear that her feelings were reciprocated.
“I remember being like, ‘I really, really like this guy, I really want him to like me too,’ and then you gave me this huge windscreen wiper wave and that was it: ‘Right, he likes me,’ ” she said.
