Peter Phillips & Harriet Sperling Wedding: 2026 Guide

Peter Phillips marries Harriet Sperling on Saturday 6 June 2026 at All Saints Church, Kemble, a Norman parish church in the Cotswolds. Peter, 48, is Princess Anne’s eldest son and 19th in line to the throne. Harriet, 45, is an NHS paediatric nurse. Both have been married before, and the couple needed Church of England permission for a second-marriage church wedding.

By Matt Ward, Editor at Weddings Hub. I’ve covered UK weddings since 2018, and the rules around royal and second-marriage church ceremonies in particular. Sources for this guide include the Cotswold Journal, ITV West Country, Hello!, and the Diocese of Gloucester. We’ll update this page as new details are confirmed.

The Peter Phillips wedding is the only major UK royal wedding of 2026. It also marks the first royal church remarriage of two divorced people in the modern era. Peter Phillips and Harriet Sperling will exchange vows on Saturday 6 June 2026 at All Saints Church in Kemble, a small Cotswolds village in Gloucestershire. The couple announced their engagement in August 2025 and confirmed the date in early 2026. Unlike the televised set pieces of 2011 and 2018, this will be a parish-church wedding. Peter is not a working royal. Harriet is an NHS nurse. The ceremony is intentionally low-key, with around 250 seats inside a Norman church that has stood since the 12th century. Below we cover everything that has been confirmed and flag what remains speculation.

When and where the Peter Phillips wedding takes place

The wedding is on Saturday 6 June 2026. The venue is All Saints Church, Kemble, in the Diocese of Gloucester. The ceremony is expected to start in the early afternoon. Kemble is a Cotswolds village about four miles south-west of Cirencester. It sits near the source of the River Thames. The village has its own railway station on the line from London Paddington to Cheltenham, which makes it unusually accessible for a country church.

All Saints itself was built between 1100 and 1250. Its tower dates from around 1250, the spire from about 1480, and the font from 1350. Lightning damaged the church in 1823 and a major restoration followed in 1872-73. It seats around 250 people. That capacity matters: it caps the guest list at a fraction of the 1,900 who attended Westminster Abbey in 2011.

Kemble was chosen because Harriet Sperling lives in Gloucestershire and the couple have local ties. Peter’s mother, Princess Anne, lives at Gatcombe Park, a roughly 30-minute drive away. The village is small, the church is small, and that is the point.

Who is Harriet Sperling?

Harriet Sperling is 45. She is a paediatric nurse specialist with the NHS and has worked at Evelina London Children’s Hospital. She studied at St Mary’s University. She has a daughter, Georgina, born in 2012, from her first marriage to fitness instructor Antonio St John Sperling.

Harriet and Peter were first photographed together at the Badminton Horse Trials in May 2024. They are understood to have been introduced through mutual friends in the Cotswolds and Gloucestershire equestrian world. The engagement was announced in August 2025. Harriet made her first major royal appearance riding in the carriage procession at Royal Ascot 2025, which most royal-watchers read as the strongest hint yet that an engagement was imminent.

She is also a published writer. In a 2023 essay for a UK Christian magazine she wrote about her years as a single mother and her faith. She is a distant relation, through her late father Rupert Sanders, of the Duke of Gloucester.

Why the wedding needed Church of England permission

Both Peter and Harriet have been married before. Peter’s first marriage to Autumn Kelly lasted from 2008 to 2021. Harriet’s first marriage also ended in divorce. Under Church of England rules, a vicar is not obliged to remarry a divorced person whose former spouse is still living.

The position has been formal policy since 2002. That year, the General Synod agreed that remarriage in church was permissible in exceptional circumstances. The decision rests with the parish vicar, who can refuse on grounds of conscience. The local clergy at All Saints have met the couple and agreed to conduct the service. The Diocese of Gloucester has confirmed the ceremony will go ahead.

This is the first time in the modern royal era that two previously-divorced royals (or near-royals) will be married in a Church of England parish church. Prince Charles and Camilla had a civil ceremony at Windsor in 2005, followed by a service of blessing at St George’s Chapel. The Phillips-Sperling service will be a full Anglican wedding, not a blessing.

Who’s expected to attend

The guest list has not been published. We expect senior royals to attend in a private capacity:

• King Charles III and Queen Camilla - Peter’s uncle and aunt by marriage, both reportedly informed early
• The Princess Royal (Princess Anne) and Vice Admiral Sir Timothy Laurence - Peter’s mother and stepfather
• Captain Mark Phillips - Peter’s father, who Anne divorced in 1992
• The Prince and Princess of Wales - Peter’s first cousins
• Zara and Mike Tindall - Peter’s sister and brother-in-law
• Princess Beatrice, Princess Eugenie and their husbands - Peter’s cousins
• The Sperling family - Harriet’s mother and immediate family

Working royals are likely to keep a low profile out of respect for the couple’s wish for a private day. Peter is not a working royal himself. He has not held an official role since his parents’ divorce in 1992. We will update this section if Buckingham Palace confirms attendance or if a guest list is briefed to the press in the days before the wedding.

How the Phillips wedding compares to recent royal weddings

The Phillips-Sperling wedding sits at the small end of the modern royal scale. The closest comparison is Princess Beatrice’s pandemic-era ceremony at the Royal Lodge chapel, which was deliberately tiny.

Wedding	Date	Venue	Guests	Televised	Working royals?
William & Kate	2011	Westminster Abbey	~1,900	Yes	Yes
Harry & Meghan	2018	St George's Chapel, Windsor	~600	Yes	Yes
Eugenie & Jack	2018	St George's Chapel, Windsor	~850	Yes	No
Beatrice & Edoardo	2020	All Saints Chapel, Royal Lodge	~20	No	No
Phillips & Sperling	2026	All Saints Church, Kemble	~250 (capacity)	No	No

The pattern is clear. Working-royal weddings are televised national events. Non-working-royal weddings are private parish ceremonies. Peter Phillips’s wedding will follow the second template.

What it means for Cotswolds wedding tourism

The Cotswolds has quietly become the high-end UK wedding destination of the decade. In April 2026, Eve Jobs (daughter of Apple founder Steve Jobs) married Olympic showjumper Harry Charles at St Michael and All Angels in Great Tew, with a reported £5 million reception at Estelle Manor and a private Elton John performance. The Phillips-Sperling wedding follows just six weeks later, in another Cotswolds parish church about 30 miles south.

Two factors drive the trend. Soho Farmhouse, Estelle Manor, Daylesford, and the cluster of country-house hotels have given the area a private and discreet venue infrastructure. And the parish churches across Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire offer something a marquee cannot: real history, real walls, and a usable seating capacity in the 100-300 range that suits a guest list of close family and friends. Expect more A-list and royal-adjacent couples to follow the Cotswolds template through the rest of the decade.

Frequently asked questions

When is the Peter Phillips wedding?

Saturday 6 June 2026, at All Saints Church, Kemble in the Cotswolds. The ceremony is scheduled for early afternoon. The venue is the parish Church of England church in Kemble village, Gloucestershire.

Who is Harriet Sperling?

Harriet Sperling is an NHS paediatric nurse who has worked at Evelina London Children’s Hospital. She and Peter Phillips met through mutual friends and announced their engagement in 2025. Harriet is 45 and has a daughter from her first marriage.

Will the wedding be on television?

No, the wedding will not be televised. Unlike the William and Kate or Harry and Meghan ceremonies, the Phillips-Sperling wedding is a private parish-church service. Limited press access is expected outside the church.

Why did the wedding need special permission?

Both Peter Phillips and Harriet Sperling have been previously married. Church of England rules require the local vicar to authorise a remarriage in church on a case-by-case basis. The vicar at All Saints, Kemble, has agreed to conduct the service.

Where is All Saints Church, Kemble?

All Saints is the Norman parish church in Kemble, a Cotswolds village in Gloucestershire about four miles south-west of Cirencester. The church seats around 250 people. It was built between 1100 and 1250 and stands near the source of the River Thames.

Will the couple have a public balcony appearance?

No, there will be no balcony appearance. Peter Phillips is not a working royal and Kemble has no royal residence. The reception is expected to be private at a nearby Cotswolds estate.

Who is officiating the ceremony?

The vicar of All Saints will lead the service, with the Diocese of Gloucester’s authorisation. Royal chaplains may participate, but the ceremony is a parish service, not a royal one.

Related articles

• All Saints Church, Kemble: a guide to the Cotswolds royal wedding venue
• Harriet Sperling: the NHS nurse marrying Peter Phillips
• Eve Jobs’s wedding at Estelle Manor: inside the Cotswolds celebration
• Cotswolds royal wedding venues like Peter Phillips’s choice
• UK royal wedding history in the modern era

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