Princess Diana's brother Earl Spencer remarried yesterday in a quiet ceremony at the family's estate at Althorp in Northamptonshire.
His bride was Caroline Freud, a friend he had first met during their time at university.
The ceremony, both partners' second wedding, was attended by around 80 relatives and friends as well as their respective children with their former partners.
The couple were married in a civil ceremony at 4pm, followed by a blessing in the Spencer family chapel.
Earl Spencer's four children with his former wife, Victoria Lockwood, attended the ceremony, as did Caroline Freud's two children from her marriage to the public relations consultant Matthew Freud. Her former husband is now married to Elizabeth Murdoch, the daughter of the international media tycoon Rupert Murdoch.
Guests included the comedian Harry Enfield and the screenwriter Richard Curtis, who are both friends of Caroline Freud.
Harry Enfield gave a speech on behalf of the bride.
The Royal Family was not represented at the ceremony. Earl Spencer has reportedly fallen out with the Royal Family despite his determination, voiced at his sister's funeral, to play a part in the lives of her sons, William and Harry.
The couple announced their engagement in October - two and a half years after their first public appearance together at the London premiere of the movie Notting Hill, written by Richard Curtis.
The Earl, 36, first met former junior schoolteacher Freud, nicknamed Pidge by friends, when they were students at Oxford.
The bride wore a full-length red gown set off by an antique diamond necklace. The ceremony was followed by a selection of Christmas carols, finishing with 'Hark the Herald Angels Sing', sung by members of Eton's school choir.
The events were lubricated with wines from South Africa, from where the Earl has recently returned.
If the vibe at Charles Spencer's 1989 wedding to Victoria Lockwood was tense--think strained smiles under a grim English sky--his second trip to the altar was anything but. On Dec. 15, swapping his formal tailcoat for a simple gray suit, the ninth Earl Spencer exchanged vows with his girlfriend of more than two years, Caroline Freud, who donned a very unbridelike red sheath. After the brief ceremony, held in the tiny chapel at Spencer's 500-year-old ancestral home, Althorp, the newlyweds joined their 80 guests for a dinner of venison and tarte tatin in the nearby picture gallery. Says one guest: "It was a quite gentle affair."
Unlike Spencer's first wedding, which was attended by his sister Princess Diana, her husband, Prince Charles, and their sons, nary a single royal turned up for the 37-year-old earl's repeat nuptials. The absence of Spencer's nephews Princes William, 19, and Harry, 17--who had accepted an earlier invitation to join their grandfather Prince Philip's shooting party at the Queen's Sandringham estate--sparked press reports of a royal snub. But a source close to Spencer, who proposed in October, says there are no hard feelings: "He would have preferred them to be there, but he understood that the wedding was short notice."
Spencer, who endured an ugly 1997 divorce from ex-model Lockwood, 36, began publicly dating Freud, 36, a former schoolteacher, in 1999, months before her divorce from public relations executive Matthew Freud. Between them the couple have six children under the age of 11 (Spencer's four live primarily with their mother in South Africa but spend school breaks with him; Freud has joint custody of her two sons).
The kids, all of whom attended the wedding, were no doubt drowsy by the time it drew to a close. "Everyone stayed chatting until about 3 a.m.," says one guest. "It was a lovely, happy evening."
