What with the sudden change of prime minister, relentless heatwaves, a jumbo Fifa World Cup, ludicrous Clacton by-election, Gianni Infantino nonsense, the Arday scandal-cum-tragedy and, not least, the return of the prodigal spare, it can be easy to forget that in the summer of 2026, that traditional seasonal filler story, “famous person gets married, you weren’t there”, was healthier than ever.
A-list superstars on their first, C-list royals on their second, pop legends you honestly thought were married already… They were all at it, emailing wedding planners with links to dusty Pinterest boards created in 2011, accompanied by the words: “Do it like this but, you know, jazz it up now I’m rich.”
They were following the traditions, looking for something old, new, borrowed and blue – and, depending on how botched their latest plastic surgery has been, some could have nailed that in one lip. They were cutting cakes they haven’t physically been able to eat without retching since the invention of Mounjaro.
They were carefully choosing bridesmaids and ushers who were marginally (but definitely) less good-looking than them. And they were painstakingly organising seating plans by both traditional metrics (how well do we know them, are they a soak, are they susceptible to a draught) and modern, necessary ones (how many times are they mentioned in the Epstein files).
Some were better than others, of course. So as this summer of love – and horror, and strife, and disappointment, and tedium, but mostly love – comes to a close, there is nothing left to do but rank them.
Cristiano Ronaldo and Georgina Rodriguez
Location: Their living room, Cascais, Portugal
Guestlist: Mainly their children, so actually quite a lot of people
Aesthetic: What if the Apple Store started selling houseplants?
FOMO score: 0/10
“Siiiiiiiiiiiuuuuuu.” No reports yet that Cristiano Ronaldo did his trademark puffed-chest celebration rather than kiss the bride at their extremely private, low-key ceremony at home in Portugal. Ronaldo met Rodriguez 10 years ago, when she was working in a Gucci store in Madrid. He popped in for a washbag, and left with a future wife. And people say customer service is dead…
The only people there were the couple’s five children. If you were unaware, Ronaldo’s approach to fatherhood has been as unorthodox and clinical as his free-kick technique: in 2010 he had Cristiano Jr, who was born in the US to a mother who remains anonymous. In 2017 he had twins, again in the US, this time definitely via surrogate. Five months later, Rodriguez gave birth to a daughter, Alana. Five years after that, she had another. Look, some dads just really like the newborn stage.
Ronaldo and Rodriguez had a small family wedding in Portugal
Anyway, they were all present, lined up with their parents in matching shades of beige and white Gucci (still got the staff discount), on the other side of a desk from the registrar, looking quite like they were checking into a hotel. As for food, drink, entertainment and whatnot, well this is a 41-year-old man with the body-fat percentage of a lamppost, who once invited a teammate round for lunch only to serve him plain chicken, salad and water, before demanding they do football drills and go swimming. There probably weren’t mini kebabs at midnight, put it that way.
Peter Phillips and Harriet Sperling
Location: All Saints Church, Kemble, Gloucestershire
Guestlist: All the big dog royals, plus every university’s lacrosse society from 2000-2001
Aesthetic: No signet ring, no bring
FOMO score: 3/10
More than 18 years after he married Autumn Kelly at St George’s Chapel in Windsor, Peter Phillips, son of the Princess Royal, was having another bash, this time in rural Gloucestershire. The bride was NHS paediatric nurse Harriet Sperling, the congregation blended “normals” with the actual King, and the whole occasion couldn’t have looked more English if it were created by AI.
Peter Phillips’s wedding to Harriet Sperling featured an appearance by a royal helicopter
Sperling’s dress was made by Emilia Wickstead, the Princess of Wales’s favourite designer. Afterwards, everybody decamped to Gatcombe Park, the groom’s mum’s gaff, for festivities. Apart from the King and Queen – they got in a helicopter to catch the Epsom Derby.
And among the bridal party, also in Wickstead, were Georgia, Savannah and Isla. Those are the couple’s daughters from previous relationships. If stuck for ideas, though, those names could have doubled as a honeymoon itinerary.
Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce
Location: Madison Square Garden, New York City
Guestlist: Everyone Swift has ever met, plus some football players she hadn’t
Aesthetic: “We are very famous”
FOMO score: 3.5/10
Yes, getting married at MSG is the equivalent of getting married at the Co-op Live arena. Yes, for Taylor Swift it’s also basically like getting married at work. But it felt somehow right that the biggest popstar in the world had a wedding that was also the tackiest, most over-the-top of the year.
In all, Swift and her now-husband, NFL player Travis Kelce, managed to narrow their guestlist down to just 1,000 of their closest friends. Given I once saw Swift leaving a hotel from the vantage point of the 176 bus to Penge, I assume I was on the “maybes” spreadsheet.
‘Your English teacher and your gym teacher are getting married’, Swift had announced. And they did – in America’s gymnasium – Adam Gray
Graham Norton, one of the lucky masses, said it was like any old wedding. But the officiant was Adam Sandler. The musical guests were Sir Paul McCartney, Stevie Nicks and Bon Jovi. The centre of Manhattan was shut down. The budget was estimated at $20m. What weddings does Norton go to?
Greg James’s review was more vivid, even if it did sound as if something might have been put in his drink: “It was like going to Madame Tussauds, but the wax was animated and you could interact with the wax and it talked back to you. It was absolutely mad.”
No word yet on whether she’ll take the wedding on tour.
Melanie C and Chris Dingwall
Location: The Country House, Cumbria
Guestlist: Everyone you’d hope, plus Victoria Beckham in cloth form
Aesthetic: “I’m the most normal Spice Girl”
FOMO score: 6/10
Truly the most normal wedding of the lot, which, admittedly, isn’t difficult when the only other contender involved the King leaving in an armoured chopper. At 52, Melanie C – aka Mel C, aka Sporty Spice, aka one of only two* Spice Girls you’d trust to operate heavy machinery – married for the first time.
Mel C’s friend and co-Spice Girl Victoria Beckham designed the wedding dress – Andrew Timms
She and the ridiculously handsome Australian screenwriter Chris Dingwall met three years ago on Raya, the dating app for celebrities and people who think they are celebrities. “He’s very laid-back. He’s loads of fun,” she told The Telegraph earlier this summer. “We work out together. We have very similar personalities and lifestyles.”
Most of the Spice Girls were there, but Lady V, who famously doesn’t come for free, was otherwise busy looking bored rigid at the World Cup, which her husband was contractually obliged to attend every moment of. She did design Mel C’s dress, though.
*Baby Spice being the other, of course.
Tom Holland and Zendaya
Location: Beaverbrook Hotel, Surrey
Guestlist: We have absolutely no idea but probably… their parents?
Aesthetic: Privacy
FOMO score: Is it possible to regret not being at something you cannot imagine? Does a tree make a sound if it falls in the woods with nobody to hear it?
We know next to nothing about this one, so you’ll have to wish me the very best of luck over the next four paragraphs. Did the world’s leading height-imbalanced superstar couple (at least since Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban divorced) do the legal bit months ago?
That was, for a while, a matter of grave intrigue in showbiz circles at the start of the year. Many people thought it might not even happen in 2026, given the couple were busy almost single-handedly propping up the global cinema box office.
There is scant information about Tom Holland and Zendaya’s wedding apart from the venue. Proof that those who really want privacy can, in fact, have it
But then Law Roach, the man with a name like a fish litigator who has been Zendaya’s stylist for most of her career, told a journalist in March “the wedding has already happened”.
It might as well have. When word broke a few weeks ago that they were finally celebrating their marriage with a full-scale party in Surrey, close to their Richmond home, nobody expected much information to get out. In the event, it made a Bilderberg Meeting look leaky.
Dua Lipa and Callum Turner
Location: Some massive villa in Bagheria, Sicily
Guestlist: Only the really, really attractive celebrities
Aesthetic: Everybody wants to be them, everybody wants to be with them
FOMO score: 9/10
Is this one still going on? Somebody ought to check. Dua Lipa, a woman who manages to both work harder than any other celebrity and take more holidays, first married Callum Turner, a man who will either be the next James Bond or forever the guy who wasn’t James Bond, at London’s Old Marylebone Town Hall in May.
That day, on which she wore a custom Schiaparelli suit modelled after Bianca Jagger’s, was never going to be the end of it. So it was that a few weeks later, the great and good of very attractive famous people decamped to Sicily for three days.
Dua Lipa’s first wedding ensemble referenced Bianca Jagger’s
Confidentiality agreements had been signed by just about everybody in Palermo, but according to a council worker The Guardian spoke to, “a sort-of ‘buffet'” was to be laid on, and Elton John was to play the piano. In the 200-strong crowd were Charli xcx, Harry Styles, Olivia Dean, Kylie Minogue, Joe Alwyn and Donatella Versace.
Always slightly annoying when friends marry abroad, but this one looked worth splitting an Airbnb for. It sounded a more attractive prospect than a windowless room in New York with 1,000 people who all thought they should be on the top table, anyway.
