Queen Elizabeth’s eldest grandchild marries NHS nurse Harriet Sperling in a private Cotswolds ceremony attended by the King, the Prince and Princess of Wales, and the Princess Royal.
Peter Phillips married Harriet Sperling on 6 June 2026 at All Saints Church in the Gloucestershire village of Kemble. The ceremony was private. It was always going to be.
Phillips, the eldest grandchild of the late Queen Elizabeth II, wed Sperling in a ceremony near Cirencester, roughly two hours from London. The occasion was the second marriage for each. Neither wanted a spectacle. What they got instead was something rarer in the modern royal calendar: a family wedding that looked, and felt, like exactly that.
King Charles III and Queen Camilla led the congregation alongside Princess Anne and Sir Timothy Laurence. Prince William and the Princess of Wales were also among the guests, as were Zara and Mike Tindall. Captain Mark Phillips, the groom’s father and Princess Anne’s first husband, attended. It was, by any measure, a full royal reunion. Understated. Deliberate. Exactly as planned.
The ceremony itself required careful navigation. Both Phillips and Sperling have been married before, and under Church of England guidelines, a divorced person may remarry in a church under certain circumstances — with the decision resting with the local minister. Permission was granted. The service proceeded at All Saints without incident.
Three bridesmaids accompanied the bride: her daughter Georgina, and Peter’s daughters Savannah and Isla Phillips. All three wore matching Emilia Wickstead dresses and flower crowns. The blended family, visible and present, was the quiet statement of the afternoon.
Following the ceremony, the wedding party moved to Gatcombe Park, Princess Anne’s Gloucestershire estate and Peter Phillips’s childhood home, for the reception. The location carries particular significance for the groom. Both the wedding and reception were coordinated by Peregrine Armstrong-Jones of Bentleys Entertainment.
Phillips and Sperling announced their engagement in August 2025, having made their public debut as a couple in May 2024. Sperling is a paediatric nurse for the National Health Service. She has spent the past two years appearing quietly and confidently at public royal engagements — Ascot, Wimbledon, Balmoral, Sandringham at Christmas. The integration was gradual. It was also clearly considered.
The palace issued no formal statement. There was no public commentary. The couple had asked for privacy and received it. In an era when royal events are managed for maximum visibility, the decision to keep this one genuinely intimate was, in itself, a choice worth noting.
The story of this wedding is not one of ceremony. It is one of a family, already well-practised at doing things quietly, doing this quietly too.
The palace says nothing. Which tells you everything.
Marcus Webb is Crown & Court’s Royal News Correspondent. Fleet Street trained, with twenty years covering the British royal family, he has stood outside more palaces in the rain than he cares to count.
“The palace says nothing. Which tells you everything.”
