On Saturday, Peter Phillips, the son of Princess Anne and eldest grandchild of Queen Elizabeth, got married to Harriet Sperling, a pediatric nurse, in a country wedding near his mother’s country home. Their nuptials were attended by most members of Peter’s extended family, including his uncle and aunt, King Charles III and Queen Camilla, as well as his cousin William and his wife, Kate.
There are always a few surprises at royal weddings and this one was no different.
But first, let’s talk about the style, because it was very good. The bride looked wonderful in an ivory lace wedding gown by Emilia Wickstead, a favoured designer of the Princess of Wales, Duchess of Edinburgh, and other royal women.
British Vogue has all the fashion details, including some in-progress images of the creation of the creation, while the designer’s Instagram feed included this description with two photos of the bride on her wedding day:
Harriet’s wedding dress is a bespoke Emilia Wickstead design, developed from initial sketch to final creation, fitted in our private salon on Sloane Street and crafted entirely by our in-house team at our West London atelier. The dress took one hundred and forty hours to make.
An intentional dialogue between tradition and modernity runs throughout the design. A square-neck column underdress is paired with a delicately cropped over-jacket that sits just above the waist, while an early 19th-century-inspired three meter train, flat and linear in silhouette, falls directly from the waist beneath the square cut-out back. Every element is rooted in a signature Emilia Wickstead silhouette and realised in Italian ivory crêpe, overlaid with exceptionally fine French Leavers lace featuring an all-over prairie flower motif that continues to the edge of Harriet’s veil.
If that wasn’t all, Harriet chose to borrow a delicate diamond-and-pearl tiara from Pragnell, the jeweller who also made her engagement ring. Sure, she could have borrowed one of her future mother-in-law’s tiaras but this decision may be a way of symbolizing that she’s determined to do things her own way. For the record, her earrings were also from Pragnell while her custom ivory satin pumps were by Jimmy Choo.
Emilia Wickstead also designed the dresses worn by the bridesmaids, who were the three daughters of Peter and Harriet by their first marriages: Savannah Phillips, Isla Phillips, and Georgina Sperling.
After the wedding, everyone returned to Princess Anne’s Gatcombe Estate for the reception.
Now, to those unexpected moments …
Peter’s cousins, Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie, attended, along with their husbands. That came as a surprise given they’ve generated weeks upon weeks of bad news for the royal family and it has been thought they wouldn’t attend the nuptials so as to not take attention away from Peter and Harriet (which they did, as you can see from this lineup in the Telegraph.)
In the end, this is not an official royal event, and Peter and Harriet were free to invite whomever they want to their private wedding, including his cousins
(To me, a big test as to Beatrice and Eugenie’s status within the royal family will be whether they are at Royal Ascot later this month, either in the prestigious carriage procession, or with the Windsors in the royal enclosure.)
The inclusion of the York sisters made the absence of Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, all the more noticeable. Sure, it’s a long way to fly for a wedding but Meghan flew to Switzerland for a very short appearance at a World Health Organization gathering.
In contrast, it was completely expected that Uncle Andrew and Aunt Sarah were not invited.
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‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source writeroyalty.substack.com ’
