Peter Phillips marries Harriet Sperling in royal ceremony at Gloucestershire church

Peter Phillips and Harriet Sperling turned a Gloucestershire church wedding into a carefully watched display of royal family modernity, with a senior NHS paediatric nurse marrying the eldest grandchild of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip before King Charles III, Queen Camilla and other senior royals. The ceremony took place at All Saints Church in Kemble, near Cirencester, and the guest list placed public service and continuity at the center of the day.

The royal turnout was substantial. Princess Anne attended her son’s second marriage, alongside Vice Admiral Sir Timothy Laurence, the Prince and Princess of Wales, Zara Tindall and Mike Tindall, and Prince Edward and Sophie, Duchess of Edinburgh. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex did not attend. Phillips, 47, became the first of Queen Elizabeth II’s grandchildren to remarry, adding a further layer of significance to a wedding that was presented as private but could hardly be separated from the institution around it.

For Buckingham Palace, the optics were unmistakable. Sperling is 45, a working NHS paediatric nurse and freelance writer, and the mother of a teenage daughter, Georgina. Her path into the royal orbit, through a relationship that became public in May 2024 and was first seen at the Badminton Horse Trials in Gloucestershire, gave the monarchy an association with everyday service rather than inherited privilege alone. The couple said they had informed the King and Queen before announcing their engagement on 1 August 2025, after about 15 months of dating.

That blend of ordinariness and ceremony was evident throughout the day. Harriet Sperling wore an Emilia Wickstead dress, with Pragnell jewelry, the Pragnell family tiara and Jimmy Choo shoes. Her bridesmaids were Peter Phillips’s daughters, Savannah, 15, and Isla, 14, along with Georgina Sperling. The reception followed at Gatcombe Park, the Princess Royal’s home, keeping the celebration within the Gloucestershire landscape long tied to Princess Anne’s family.

Outside the church, the public response suggested the marriage still carried national interest well beyond family circles. Members of the public gathered near the venue, some traveling from as far as Ireland, while roads around the church were closed and barriers erected. For a monarchy under constant pressure to justify itself in contemporary terms, the sight of a senior NHS nurse entering the royal family offered exactly the kind of grounded, service-heavy symbolism the palace tends to value most.