THE WEDDINGS OF HER CHILDREN
PRINCESS ANNE
Anne wed Mark Phillips, an Olympic equestrian and retired military officer, at Westminster Abbey in 1973. It was a celebrated affair – the date was declared a national holiday in the UK and about 500 million people tuned in around the world to watch the event. Anne wore the Queen Mary fringe tiara, the same headpiece her mother had worn to her wedding.
Anne and Mark had two children, Peter and Zara, but after 19 years together the couple divorced – reportedly due to infidelity. Mark secretly fathered a child out of wedlock with an art teacher from New Zealand named Heather Tonkin. At first
Mark denied the claims but in 1991 it was revealed he’d been sending Heather child support payments for five years.
In December 1992 – the same year her divorce was finalised – Anne married her second husband, Sir Timothy Laurence, a naval officer.
The couple weren’t permitted to marry in England as Anne had been married before so they wed in a simple ceremony in Scotland attended by most of her family.
PRINCE CHARLES
The heir to the throne married Lady Diana Spencer at St Paul’s Cathedral in London in 1981 in what was dubbed the wedding of the century. But the marriage was doomed from the start.
The princess was always keenly aware of the fact that Charles was in love with Camilla Parker Bowles but the queen wanted Diana to look past Charles’ infidelity and preserve the family’s image. Eventually the couple’s growing unhappiness made it impossible to continue. They separated in 1992 and in 1995 Her Majesty urged the pair to divorce.
Charles married Camilla, who was also divorced with two children, in a civil ceremony in Windsor Guildhall in 2005.
PRINCE ANDREW
The Duke of York married Sarah Ferguson in a grand wedding in Westminster Abbey in 1986.
Insiders say the queen liked Fergie at first. “They bonded over a shared love of horses and Her Majesty liked that Sarah was a real get-on-with-it kind of girl,” one source reports.
But in 1992 things went pear-shaped. Pictures of Fergie hanging out topless with oil tycoon John Bryan and having her toes sucked were splashed across the front pages of the tabloids.
The royal family was furious and Prince Philip vowed never to be in the same room with his daughter-in-law again.
Fergie admitted to Gyles Brandreth, the
duke’s official biographer, that Philip ignored her from then on. “As soon as I came in through one door, he’d be falling over the corgis to get out the other. It was very funny. Except, of course, it wasn’t.”
Andrew and Fergie divorced in 1996.
PRINCE EDWARD
The queen’s youngest son married Sophie Rhys-Jones at St George’s Chapel in Windsor in 1999.
The couple asked that their wedding be kept small and intimate. “Edward didn’t want a grand affair with all the pomp and ceremony,” a palace insider says.
Guests were asked to wear evening wear instead of more formal “court dress” and were requested not to wear hats – although the Queen Mother wore one. “She said she always wore a hat and no one was going to tell her not to,” the source says.