Peter Phillips announced his engagement to Harriet Sperling on Friday, and the British media immediately commenced wildly speculating about what the wedding would entail and who would be invited. This will be the second marriage for both Peter and Harriet, and both have children from their previous relationships. Which I like – I think it’s nice that we’re seeing a blended family and an age-appropriate pairing of two divorced 40-somethings. Anyway, as I said, the Windsors are going to make a really big deal about this wedding because they’ve been in desperate need of big, happy royal events. They also need an excuse to demand that Prince Harry “come back to England” to attend some event. Peter’s wedding will be that excuse by the sound of it:
With Peter Phillips and Harriet Sperling set to tie the knot, the first major British royal wedding in years is now on the horizon. The couple, who have been dating for a little over a year, officially announced their engagement on Friday – and it’s likely royal fans will be in for a treat when their wedding rolls around. Princess Anne’s son and NHS nurse Harriet have both been married before – Peter to Autumn Kelly, and Harriet to a fitness instructor – leading some to question whether their nuptials may look slightly different to what the nation is accustomed to when it comes to royalty.
However, former royal butler, Grant Harrold, believes that the couple won’t be held back by royal protocol like King Charles and Queen Camilla once were because it is ‘very different times’ now. Grant told Femail: ‘Historically, yes, royal weddings, if you’re divorced and you got married again, it was always a much more low key affair. I still think [Peter’s] will be an all-white wedding. I think he’ll still want to do things even though he’s the divorcee. I still think it will be a full blown white wedding affair. I think it’s very different times, so they can either go for a low key or a high profile. It’ll be entirely up to them at the time.’
Marrying as a divorced person is still a relatively new concept for the royals – only happening in the last 20 years – meaning there’s no clear and established path. The couple is yet to confirm any details of the wedding – but they could opt for a style similar to King Charles and Queen Camilla when they married in 2005. Unlike Charles’ first wedding, the couple’s civil ceremony was kept private, and Buckingham Palace announced that there would be no music or readings featured in the order of service.
But royal expert Phil Dampier told Femail that it is likely Harriet and Peter won’t be held back by royal protocols like Camilla and Charles were. He said: ‘I think Peter Phillips’ wedding will be fairly low key but not because he is divorced. After all the first marriages of the King, Princess Anne and Prince Andrew all ended in divorce as well, so the stigma that there was in the 50s is no longer there. Peter Phillips is not a working royal so he can pretty much do what he wants. I’m sure senior royals will be invited and will attend but we probably won’t see any big parade or carriage procession. He is well down the pecking order in the line of succession and so it will be very much done as he and his fiancée want.’
‘In that sense, it won’t be very different from his first wedding. Ironically, his first wife switched from being a Catholic to the Church of England so that he wouldn’t lose his place in the line of succession, but the rules have now been changed and he is so far down to be irrelevant now.’
While a guest list and a date have not officially been set for the wedding, many royal fans may wonder whether Prince Harry and Meghan Markle will get an invite to Harriet and Peter’s royal nuptials. Former royal butler, Grant Harrold, also believes that Harry will be in attendance. He said: ‘One thing I do know is obviously the King and Queen and his cousin Prince William, and possibly Prince Harry, who’s also very close to him, would be there.’
The Duke of Sussex, along with his brother William, were raised in Gloucestershire, just a few miles from where Peter Phillips and his sister, Zara Tindall, grew up and the foursome appeared to share a close bond.
This piece was crazy long, but you get the broad strokes. They even suggested that Peter and Harriet should do a Sussex-style wedding, hahahaha. And the Mail mentioned the fact that Prince William skipped Peter’s first wedding – William was in Kenya at the time, with Jecca Craig’s family. *cough* I imagine William will make it to Peter’s second wedding though, if only to use his presence to argue that Peter needs to choose. Meaning, if William goes to the wedding, ten bucks says he’ll try to force Peter into NOT inviting Harry. Anyway, they’re absolutely going to try to turn this into another major social event. And with that, the main storyline will be “Are Harry and Meghan going to the wedding?”
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.
