Royal wedding joy: Beatrice is engaged!

The parents are delighted – now the push for a ceremony fit for a princess.

After almost seven years together, fun-loving Princess Beatrice is believed to have said yes to a marriage proposal by boyfriend Dave Clark, her high-school sweetheart. Beatrice’s divorced parents Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson both adore Dave and are understood to be thrilled the couple are taking the next step, despite Fergie’s initial worries that her daughter is too young to marry.

Fergie was 26 on her wedding day and although Bea is only 24, the family are expected to unite to send her down the aisle in the style they believe she deserves. The couple met at the birthday party of Pierce Brosnan’s son Sean in 2006 after being introduced by her cousin Wills, who went to school with Dave. Royal reporter Bill Coles tells Woman’s Day: “Prince Andrew is delighted that Bea is finally going to get married.

“My understanding is Prince Andrew will be asking his mother, Her Majesty the Queen, for every possible element of royal tradition to be observed and for all the regal finery she will permit. He’d love to see Bea marry in Westminster Abbey or St Paul’s Cathedral.

“He’s been pressuring Bea for the last year or two to make it official and stop living in sin. “Andrew really hasn’t liked the fact that Bea and Dave have waited so long to make things official – he’s made his feelings very clear. “But Fergie is warning Bea ‘not to make the same mistakes I did’ by which she means marrying too young and under pressure from the weight of royal expectation.