Princess Eugenie shares breathtaking photo of back-baring wedding dress for heartfelt reason
Princess Eugenie shared a stunning photo from her wedding day with Jack Brooksbank on Tuesday.
The royal tends to use her social media platform to promote her charitable work, but she made an exception by posting a personal snap to raise awareness of Scoliosis Day, which falls on 26 June.
Sarah Ferguson and Prince Andrew's youngest daughter looked over her shoulder in her ivory gown designed by Peter Pilotto and Christopher De Vos, which featured a low V at the back, folded shoulders, long sleeves and a cathedral-length train.
Breaking with royal tradition, Eugenie chose not to wear a veil when she exchanged vows with Jack at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle in October 2018 to show off her faded white scar that runs along her spine.
Scoliosis surgery
Eugenie has had the scar since the age of 12 when she underwent corrective surgery for scoliosis – which causes the spine to bend to one side – at the Royal National Orthopedic Hospital.
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During an appearance on This Morning shortly before her big day, she explained: "I had an operation when I was 12 on my back, and you'll see on Friday [at the wedding], but it's a lovely way to honour the people who looked after me and a way of standing up for young people who also go through this.
"I think you can change the way beauty is, and you can show people your scars and I think it's really special to stand up for that."
Eugenie went into further detail about her experience on the hospital's website, recalling how she was "nervous" at the time but extremely grateful today.
"During my operation, which took eight hours, my surgeons inserted eight-inch titanium rods into each side of my spine and one-and-a-half-inch screws at the top of my neck. After three days in intensive care, I spent a week on a ward and six days in a wheelchair, but I was walking again after that," she explained.
"Without the care I received at the RNOH I wouldn't look the way I do now; my back would be hunched over. And I wouldn't be able to talk about scoliosis the way I now do, and help other children who come to me with the same problem."
Royal wedding dress
Aside from the meaningful silhouette, Eugenie also chose four significant symbols to create a "modern-looking" material: a thistle to represent Scotland and their love for Balmoral; the White Rose of York, which is Eugenie's family flower; a shamrock to pay homage to Sarah Ferguson's heritage; and ivy, which represented the couple's home Ivy Cottage.
She paired it with the Greville Emerald Kokoshnik tiara, borrowed from her late grandmother Queen Elizabeth II – the first time the £10 million diamond and emerald headpiece had been seen in public.
It was perfectly offset by a pair of matching diamond and emerald drop earrings, a wedding present from her husband Jack.
Eugenie had teased details about her much-anticipated wedding dress, hinting she didn't want a style that was "out of fashion."
After being asked whether she wanted a straight or meringue silhouette, she replied: "Maybe a mix of both. Can you do that? Is there such a thing?
"No meringue shoulders - that's a little bit out of fashion - maybe it's in fashion now? We'll see what happens," she said in an interview on The One Show.
The couple met during a Verbier ski holiday in 2010 when Princess Eugenie was 20 and Brooksbank was 24. They dated for eight years before Jack got down on one knee during their holiday in Nicaragua on New Year's Day in 2018. "I was over the moon, crying," she revealed.
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