The rain did not stop the royals. On a wet June day, senior members of the Royal Family gathered in the small town of Kemble, Gloucestershire, to watch Princess Anne's son, Peter Phillips, marry NHS nurse Harriet Sperling at All Saints Church.
King Charles and Queen Camilla arrived to cheers from the public, who later shouted “hip hip hooray” as the bride appeared. She wore a floor-length lace gown by London-based Emilia Wickstead, paired with the Pragnell family tiara. Three bridesmaids followed: Phillips’s daughters Savannah, 15, and Isla, 14, and Sperling’s teenage daughter Georgina.
“King Charles and other senior royals attended Peter Phillips's wedding to NHS nurse Harriet Sperling amid rain.”
The Prince and Princess of Wales were also in attendance. Kate Middleton stepped out of a car as she arrived, while Prince William joined her inside. It was a notable appearance for William, who missed Phillips’s first wedding to Autumn Kelly — a “long-standing prior engagement,” a senior royal source said at the time. Reports suggest William was eager to make amends.
Other guests included the groom’s sister Zara Tindall, her husband Mike, and their daughters. Princesses Eugenie and Beatrice arrived with their husbands Jack Brooksbank and Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi, despite having kept a low public profile amid controversies surrounding their father, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle were not at the wedding.
After the ceremony, the couple posed for pictures in the rain outside the church, then shared a kiss in the car before driving away, both smiling.
One local climbed a ladder over a garden fence to catch a glimpse of the royals.
The wedding unfolded against a backdrop of enduring fascination with the monarchy. Fifteen years after Kate Middleton married Prince William in a grand Westminster ceremony, her public image remains a subject of scrutiny. Catherine Mayer, then London Bureau Chief for TIME magazine, met the new duchess at a Buckingham Palace reception in 2011. Writing in the Daily Mail, she recalled: “In the flesh, Kate is not so much relatable as an ideal of relatability, like those spotless interiors created by advertisers to shift furniture or kitchen appliances.” Mayer described her own hair as “the joke-shop variety, nylon not silk” beside Kate’s. The encounter left her questioning the work required to maintain such an immaculate appearance — and its effect on women who view it as an “attainable goal.”
For now, at least, the royal machine had turned out for a family wedding in the rain. And the bride and groom drove off, leaving the crowd to wonder whether the next generation of royals will ever seem quite so effortlessly perfect.