UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson marries for the third time
Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, at the weekend got married for the third time, exchanging vows with Carrie Symonds in a ceremony at Westminster Cathedral.
The “small ceremony” between the senior politician and her partner who is 24 years younger, took place on Saturday afternoon, a spokesman said.
The spokesman added that the couple would celebrate again with family and friends next summer.
“The Prime Minister and Ms. Symonds were married yesterday afternoon in a small ceremony at Westminster Cathedral. The couple will celebrate their wedding with family and friends next summer,” a spokesperson for the prime minister’s office.
According to The Sun, the prime minister and Ms. Symonds, 33, tied the knot on Saturday with only a handful of church officials aware of the preparations.
The Mail on Sunday reported that 30 guests were invited to the ceremony at short notice – the maximum number of attendees allowed under Covid restrictions in England.
A few church officials were involved in preparations for the Catholic ceremony, which Father Daniel Humphreys officiated, it said.
The marriage comes just days after the couple was said to have sent save-the-date cards to family and friends for an event on July 30, 2022.
Boris and Symonds were engaged in late 2019, and their son Wilfred was born in April 2020 during the first coronavirus lockdown.
Johnson, 56, has four children from his second marriage with Marina Wheeler. The two announced they were splitting after 25 years of marriage in September 2018, shortly after which Johnson’s relationship with Symonds was confirmed.
Although Boris, 56, has been married twice before, the Roman Catholic Church can allow divorcees to remarry if the previous marriages were outside the Roman Catholic Church.
“If you are a Catholic, a baptized Catholic, and your first two weddings were not in a Catholic Church overseen by a Catholic minister, therefore the Roman Catholic Church does not recognize those two marriages as valid,” Matt Chinery was quoted by CNN.
He is the first PM to get married while in office in nearly 200 years. The only other PM to marry in office was Lord Liverpool, who wed Mary Chester in 1822.
Symonds was part of the campaign team that helped get Johnson re-elected as mayor of London in 2012.
At age 29, Symonds became the youngest-ever director of communications at the Conservative Party.