With just weeks to go before the second royal wedding of the year, it has been revealed that Princess Eugenie and Jack Brooksbank's security costs for the day will total £2m. The Queen's granddaughter, who is ninth-in-line to the throne, will marry at St George's Chapel in Windsor on Friday 12 October – the same venue where her cousin Prince Harry tied the knot with Meghan Markle in May.
Just like Harry and Meghan's wedding, security is expected to reach an all-time high, with extra police officers drafted in to guard the quaint town of Windsor. Eugenie and Jack will also take part in a carriage ride around the town, meaning that police and sniffer dogs will be deployed to search the route beforehand. The Mirror reports that taxpayers will pick up the £2m security bill.
Get to know Princess Eugenie and Jack:
It might seem like a lot of money, but it's actually fairly low compared with the cost of other royal weddings. Harry and Meghan's wedding was originally rumoured to cost £30m, however police commissioner Anthony Stansfeld later stated that the end security bill was "between £2m and £4m". Approximately 100,000 spectators descended on Windsor on the big day, in what was one of Thames Valley Police's largest-ever security operations, which required reinforcements from other forces including the Metropolitan Police.
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And the cost to the public purse must also be weighed up against the gains. Harry and Meghan's wedding did provide a major boost to the UK economy. Airbnb alone claims that more than £11m was injected into the local economy, thanks to the surge of guests who spent on holiday rentals, shopping, transport, food and leisure activities.
The couple attended their friend's wedding earlier this month
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Back in 2011, at Prince William and Kate's wedding, costs mounted to £6.35m, including £2.8m on police overtime. Of that, £3.6 million was paid by a Home Office grant to cover "additional costs," the Metropolitan Police said. Hundreds of officers were drafted in to help police crowds watching the event in London, which saw an estimated one million people line the streets.
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