Exclusive: Rod and Penny’s lavish second wedding
The singer and his wife renew their loving vows
When Rod Stewart first exchanged wedding vows with Penny Lancaster, it was in a medieval monastery in Portofino as an Italian children’s choir sang, more than 100 guests celebrated and fireworks exploded over the Mediterranean.
A decade on and the loving couple – now Sir Rod and Lady Stewart – renewed those same vows on a perfect British summer’s day, standing under an ancient beech tree in the grounds of their Essex home, dressed in white, surrounded by many of the same friends and family.
They were joined by their sons Alastair, 11 – who had been present as a toddler in 2007 – and six-year-old Aiden,
who both carefully passed the wedding bands to their parents during the intimate ceremony.
“Penny is my whole world. What a girl,” Rod, 72, says in exclusive coverage of their special day. “Love means many things to many people, but to me it’s wanting to share everything with the one you love and I love Penny more now than ever, if that is at all possible.
“It was a beautifully romantic thing to do,” he says of the service. “We’re not proving anything, just sharing our love with our friends and family.”
“We wanted to say ‘I do’ again,” says 46-year-old Penny, adding that the ceremony was “everything I imagined it to be”.
“Being able to reflect on those 10 years and say those words to one another and still know we mean them is important.
“This felt more special,” she adds. “You get married with the hope that you’ll be together. When we renewed our vows, we said them not with just hope but with a reassurance. Along with hope, there is also faith, love and bringing all the family together.”
Clan reunion
Joining the couple, who first met 18 years ago by chance at a Christmas party at London’s Dorchester hotel, were Rod’s daughter Kimberly, 37, and her five-year-old daughter Delilah, and son Sean, 36, who had all flown in from their homes in Los Angeles. Also joining them were Renee, 25, and Liam, 22, Rod’s children by Kiwi model Rachel Hunter, who are working in the UK. All came to stay together at the house a week before the ceremony. Rod’s daughter Ruby, 30, had a prior work commitment and had to miss the day.
The guests – who included Ronnie Wood with his wife Sally – sat on white benches in the beautiful garden of Rod and Penny’s grand house for the service, which took place in the early evening after a champagne reception.
Penny’s beloved cavapoo dog Bubbles played an important role as he accompanied his owner up the aisle and sat at her feet. Anticipating a wet summer’s day, Penny had provided white umbrellas – but on reflection thinks she should have given out tissues instead as there “wasn’t a dry eye” during the service.
“It was a given I was going to cry – everyone expects it of me,” she says of the moment when she repeated her promise to love and
cherish her husband forever. “And then when Rod got a tear, everybody did. It was like a domino effect.”
“I did become tearful and I’m proud of it,” Rod confesses.
The rock star and his wife are known to have one of the happiest and most stable marriages in a notoriously fickle industry, and over the years they have, says Penny, “learnt to sway with one another”.
“We move in the right direction. Some people have said we’ve even started to look like one another,” she jokes. At the centre of their world are Alastair and Aiden, who were keen to play key roles in their parents’ big day.
“My little Aiden would look at pictures of our wedding day and say, ‘Where was I?’ and I’d say, ‘You weren’t born yet, darling,’” tells Penny. “So he was so excited about the renewal and feels like he’s not left out now.”
There are many details of their Portofino wedding that Penny was keen to include. They exchanged the same traditional vows in a ceremony conducted by the same reverend. She used the same florist, wedding photographer and hairdresser, who styled her blonde hair into a side plait decorated with flowers from the garden.
“I wanted to be with the people who could create the same magical feeling for me,” she explains. “It felt like extended family.”
Even her dress had a connection to her wedding. Looking for something boho and informal, she spotted the pretty floor-length white lace frock in Barneys department store in LA.
“It wasn’t at all fitted and I knew I’d be really comfortable in it,” she says. It was only when she got it home and looked at the label that she discovered, by coincidence, that it was made in Portofino. “I was like, ‘My God, this is the one I have to wear.’”
Says her proud husband, “My darling looked gorgeous – heaven knows what she sees in me – but then she always does to me. In a nutshell, she looked like a pre-Raphaelite painting. Just beautiful.”
The original plan was to return to Italy for the ceremony, but they decided instead to celebrate at the 18th-century house they moved into and renovated three years ago, which, says Penny, “sings in the summer. There’s a real soul to it, and character, and we thought, ‘How amazing it would be to have a party here.’”
Reflecting on the past 10 years, Penny believes she and Rod have “blended and moulded to one another”.
“The hearts are sewn together now,” she says. The decision to renew their vows follows the ethos of their relationship, which is to “work at it”, she says. “It’s not an effort, but we’re conscious of giving each other time. I always think we’re in such a fortunate position because we have the opportunity not to have to work when we don’t want to, to be able to have a romantic weekend together and reconnect, and inject a little bit of romance into our life,” says Penny.
“We express our feelings all the time and will ask, ‘What’s on your mind?’”
Fun & family
They also have a good laugh together. “I love the fun, goofy Rod,” she smiles. “And the fact that he’s such a gentleman. He has the whole package, but it’s his romance and cheekiness that I love the most.”
She has also seen Rod change over time. “He has learnt to listen and take on advice much better than he used to,” she says. “The superstar that he is, a lot of the time it’s just about him. But this is the longest relationship he has ever been in,” she says of her husband, who is twice divorced.
“And he wasn’t under the same roof as a family when his other children were growing older. He didn’t live day in, day out with all the kids and their changes in life.”
Whereas with Alastair and Aiden, he does. “So he has learnt to compromise, be more understanding and reflect on other people’s needs. He has become a lot softer and his elder children will even admit he’s a better parent who gives them more time. He’s still head honcho,” she’s quick to add. “He’s still the boss, the breadwinner – he still comes first. But he’s very good at
taking other people’s needs into consideration.”
Penny, in turn, has also changed. “I’ve come on board with an extended family and learnt new skills. But I’m a bit of a peacemaker and if everybody’s happy, then I’m happy too.”
And what she has given Rod is immeasurable. “Penny has brought me everything in life but, most of all, contentment,” he declares.
The demands of being married to a rock star who loves to perform to his fans worldwide means that Rod and Penny spend periods of time apart. The singer divides his time between England, where his youngest boys go to school, and Los Angeles, where his older offspring live and where the family decamps for school holidays.
These separations, which they never leave for longer than two weeks at a time, can be “refreshing”, admits Penny. “It’s like there’s a bit of elastic binding us together. We’ll both give each other freedom – whether it’s to go out with friends or family or work – but there’s that connection so we always bounce back to one another. We know that the centre of our happiness is when we’re together.
“On our wedding day 10 years ago, everything was a blur apart from Rod and I. We were in a little bubble and all I could see was him. This time, I was very present. I could look around at all the people we love and cherish, and hold on to that moment.
“And just maybe,” she adds, “we’ll be doing it all over again for our 20th wedding anniversary.”
ROD AND PENNY HAVE DONATED THEIR ENTIRE FEE FOR THIS ARTICLE TO THE EVENING STANDARD DISPOSSESSED FUND IN AID OF VICTIMS OF THE GRENFELL TOWER FIRE TRAGEDY.