Peter Phillips married Harriet Sperling in the rain in the Cotswolds, and it was – against all expectations – completely lovely
Let us be honest about what we expected.
Peter Phillips – 48, sports management executive, holder of no royal title, nineteenth in the line of succession and therefore roughly as likely to be King as I am – was getting married for the second time in a small church in the Cotswolds on a Saturday in June. It was described, officially, as a private ceremony. The expectation was modest. A few royals. A nice dress. Some photographs outside. Home for tea.
What actually happened was considerably more interesting.
The wedding of Peter Phillips and Harriet Sperling at All Saints Church in Kemble, near Cirencester, drew members of the royal family to the honey-coloured Cotswold village in what turned out to be one of those occasions that reminds you why the British monarchy, for all its complications and contradictions, remains one of the world’s most reliable producers of a certain kind of theatre.
King Charles and Queen Camilla attended the ceremony, as did the Prince and Princess of Wales. Kate, because she is constitutionally incapable of looking anything other than immaculate, wore a nude coloured tweed dress by Roland Mouret. Princesses Eugenie and Beatrice were also among the guests, along with Samuel Chatto – Princess Margaret’s grandson – making a rare public appearance.
Now. I want to talk about the rain.
Because it rained. Of course it rained. It is England in June, which means rain is not an aberration but a commitment. Guests held umbrellas in heavy rain to throw rose petals over the couple as they emerged from the church. There is something deeply and specifically British about this image – the rose petals, the umbrellas, the entirely cheerful determination to celebrate properly regardless of what the weather is doing – that I find genuinely moving in a way I wasn’t expecting.
The bride wore a column-style dress with a lace neckline and sleeves and a dramatic train, designed by Emilia Wickstead. There had apparently been considerable speculation in advance about whether she would wear a tiara. She did not disappoint, choosing the Pragnell family tiara featuring glittering laurel leaves and floral motifs, similar to a tiara worn by Princess Anne in official photographs to mark her 50th birthday. A nice touch. Very much the Anne way of doing things.
The bridal party was, by the standards of modern Britain, admirably modern. Peter’s daughters from his first marriage – Savannah, 14, and Isla, 13 – along with Harriet’s daughter Georgina assisted with the bride’s train and veil. Three girls, two families, one blended party walking up the aisle together. Nobody made a fuss about it. It was simply the reality of how people live their lives now, and the occasion accommodated it with complete grace.
Peter Phillips, for the uninitiated, is the eldest grandson of Queen Elizabeth II – the son of Princess Anne and Captain Mark Phillips – and has always operated in a slightly unusual space in the royal ecosystem. He has a title he is entitled to but has never used. He gets on with his life, holds down a job, turns up to the right events and largely avoids making a nuisance of himself. He is, by the standards of the family he was born into, almost aggressively normal.
Harriet Sperling is a paediatric NHS nurse from Gloucestershire. She grew up near Kemble, which is why the church was chosen, and which gives the day a personal geography that the grand Westminster occasions never quite manage. The couple made their public debut at the Badminton Horse Trials in 2024 and announced their engagement in August 2025. Because both had been married before, they required special permission from the Church of England to marry in a church. Permission was granted, presumably without too much difficulty given the groom’s family connections.
The wedding reception followed at Princess Anne’s Gatcombe Park estate nearby, though King Charles and Queen Camilla departed afterwards for the Epsom Derby. Which tells you everything you need to know about the royal schedule in early June.
What strikes me most, looking at the photographs taken outside All Saints Church in the Cotswolds rain, is how happy everyone looks. Not the performed, ceremonial happiness of a state occasion, but the real thing. A man who has been through the wringer of a public marriage ending and come out the other side. A woman in a tiara who grew up a few miles from the church where she just got married. Three girls navigating the considerable logistical challenge of managing a dramatic train in a downpour. And the King of England, in a small English village, watching his nephew get married on a Saturday.
Lovely. Just genuinely, unexpectedly lovely.
The Cotswolds have never looked better in the rain.
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