Peter Phillips Defies Late Queen’s Ban With Wedding Announcement — Puts King Charles in a Bind Again
Peter Phillips’ engagement to Harriet Spencer revives memories of his controversial 2008 wedding deal as he breaks a ban imposed by the late Queen.
Peter Phillips recently announced his engagement to girlfriend Harriet Sperling via HELLO! magazine, and the news has sparked déjà vu, and possibly a headache for King Charles. This won’t be Peter’s first trip down the aisle. In 2008, he married Autumn Kelly in a wedding that became infamous not only for the vows but for the lucrative deal behind the scenes, the Daily Beast reported.
The former couple sold the photographic rights to their ceremony to HELLO! for nearly $700,000, granting the magazine rare access to St. George’s Chapel, the royal family’s historic wedding venue. The result was a lavish 100-page special, 59 of which were filled with wedding photos. According to The Telegraph at the time, Queen Elizabeth hadn’t been consulted on the deal, and she later responded by enforcing a strict ban on such commercial photo arrangements. “It will never happen again,” a source told the outlet. “In hindsight, it should never have happened in the first place.”
The 2008 arrangement didn’t sit well with the Windsors. As royal expert Simon Vigar said in the documentary Meghan: Where Did It All Go Wrong?, the move “went down like a lead balloon with many members of the royal family.” As per the Express, he explained, “Generally, what happens in the private do’s, there are no cameras there, or none of our cameras are there. So what happened at Peter and Autumn’s wedding is controversial and unusual.”
With the Queen now gone and Charles now on the throne, royal reporter Daniela Elser, writing for news.com.au, noted the challenge the King now faces: “Just as the royal family’s wedding apparatus rustily cranks into gear and a courtier Googles who has the royal warrant for bonbonerie, King Charles could be about to be sorely tested. His Majesty has six nieces and nephews who live civilian lives and have civilian bills to pay – and for whom their most bankable asset is their royal status.”
Back in 2008, the element of surprise amplified the fallout. The late Queen, Prince Philip, and then-Prince Charles attended what they believed was a private family celebration, only to discover that 'four snappers' from the magazine and a journalist were in attendance while the senior royals were "off-duty and in the vicinity of an open bar.” The resultant spread even included 10 solo shots of the Queen, along with HELLO!’s prize scoop, the first-ever images of Kate Middleton and Chelsy Davy, Harry's then-girlfriend, mingling with the royal family.
But Charles now faces a different royal climate. In the years since, Harry and Meghan Markle have stepped back from royal duties and pursued highly visible commercial ventures with Netflix, Oprah, and more. Against that backdrop, a glossy wedding spread of Peter and Harriet could seem almost quaint.
Elser pointed out the potential stakes, saying, “The exclusive right to a Windsor wedding could be worth millions, even if the groom is only 19th in line to the throne and is so far down the line of succession he needs a decent pair of field glasses to see to the front of the queue. How does the King handle this, given his own son and daughter-in-law have been selling their own story for more than five years now?” It’s a delicate balancing act for the monarch. Allowing his nieces and nephews to profit from royal connections risks accusations of double standards, yet clamping down could appear hypocritical when the Sussexes enjoy full financial freedom.
