Princess Beatrice’s Wedding Has Officially Been Canceled Due To Coronavirus

COVID-19 has caused yet another major global event to bite the dust. Princess Beatrice has canceled her royal wedding due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. The eldest daughter of Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson was set to wed Italian businessman Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi on May 29, but due to the current lockdown on the U.K., all plans have been formally called off for now.

On Thursday, April 16, a spokesperson for the couple confirmed that their planned ceremony at St. James's Palace in London would no longer be taking place. "There are no plans to switch venues or hold a bigger wedding," the palace said in a statement obtained by People. "They aren’t even thinking about their wedding at this time. There will come a time to rearrange, but that’s not yet."

This is just the latest snag in the saga of Princess Beatrice and Mozzi's nuptials, after they've already had to change the date of their ceremony twice due to backlash about her father Prince Andrew's ties to convicted sex offender Jeffery Epstein. Due to the scandal, their plans for the wedding were downsized, with the couple deciding not to televise their ceremony or have a formal carriage procession, as Meghan Markle, Kate Middleton, and sister Princess Eugenie did during their royal weddings.

Then, due to coronavirus, it was announced in March that the post-wedding reception hosted by Queen Elizabeth at Buckingham Palace would not happen, citing concerns for at-risk groups that would be in attendance. Instead, the couple was thinking about the possibility of getting married in a private ceremony with select family and friends, a much smaller gathering than initially planned. But due to the severity of COVID-19, all wedding plans have been halted. In fact, a source told People that "the invitations were never actually sent out" due to coronavirus concerns.

The statement seems to indirectly squash previously reports that Princess Beatrice was thinking about holding a bigger ceremony in 2021 that would in fact be televised, as reported by The Daily Mail. "Beatrice wants to show the public that she will never shirk her civic duties," a source claimed to the Daily Mail. "By next year, it would be wonderful if she could hold her head up high as she walks down the aisle in front of hundreds of people."

As Marie Claire reported, the supposed new plan for a bigger wedding in 2021 did not fly well with many social media users, with the overall sentiment being that a huge, taxpayer-funded royal wedding is not the thing that's needed to relieve people of stress and economic struggles caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Regardless of whether her wedding is a big affair or not, it seems more and more likely that nothing will take place until 2021 at the earliest.

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