Why Prince Andrew was erased from key royal wedding pictures

A father’s presence at his daughter’s wedding is always special, and Prince Andrew was no exception when he walked Princess Beatrice down the aisle on her wedding day in 2020. 

But eagle-eyed royal watchers quickly noticed something odd: Andrew was conspicuously absent from the official wedding photographs.

Princess Beatrice’s nuptials, held on July 17, 2020, couldn’t have been more different from her sister Princess Eugenie’s lavish 2018 ceremony, which was televised and attended by hundreds. 

Beatrice and her husband Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi opted for a quiet, intimate ceremony at The Royal Chapel of All Saints in Windsor, under strict COVID-19 restrictions, with only one photographer, Benjamin Wheeler, capturing the day.

Although Andrew reportedly fulfilled his fatherly duty, escorting his eldest daughter down the aisle, none of the few carefully selected official photos released to the public featured the Duke of York, sparking speculation about his notable absence.

So what was the real reason Prince Andrew was missing from these key wedding pictures? Timing and scandal.

At the time of Beatrice’s wedding, Andrew was at the centre of intense public scrutiny. 

Just months earlier, he had stepped down from royal duties following his disastrous BBC Newsnight interview in late 2019, during which he addressed his association with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The fallout from that interview, and the arrest of his former friend Ghislaine Maxwell in the same period, meant that the Duke of York’s public image had become severely tarnished.

Although he attended the private ceremony and played a key role as father of the bride, royal insiders say the decision to exclude him from public-facing images was a deliberate move to keep the focus on Beatrice and avoid controversy overshadowing her big day.

Instead, the few photos released featured Beatrice and Edoardo alone or alongside Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, keeping the narrative centered on family tradition, Beatrice even wore one of the Queen’s vintage dresses and her wedding tiara.

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