British PM gets married in secret ceremony

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British PM gets married in secret ceremony

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has married his fiancee Carrie Symonds in a secretly-planned wedding at Westminster Cathedral.

The wedding took place in a “small ceremony” on Saturday afternoon, a Downing Street spokesman said.

The spokesman added that the couple would celebrate again with family and friends next summer, with their honeymoon also delayed until then.

The prime minister has already returned to work.

He is the first PM to get married while in office in nearly 200 years.

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 small number of church officials were involved in preparations for the Catholic ceremony, which was officiated by Father Daniel Humphreys, it said.

Although Mr Johnson, 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.

Downing Street did not reveal any details of who was invited and whether any of Mr Johnson’s Cabinet colleagues were among the guests.

Several politicians have congratulated the couple, including Home Secretary Priti Patel, Vaccines Minister Nadhim Zahawi and Work and Pensions Secretary Therese Coffey.

Ms Patel wrote on Twitter: “Many Congratulations to Mr & Mrs Johnson @BorisJohnson and @CarrieSymonds. Wishing you both much love and happiness.”

Musicians were pictured leaving No 10 on Saturday night.

Members of the public were asked to leave Westminster Cathedral just after 13:30 BST, the Sun reported.

The new Mrs Johnson – who has confirmed she will take her husband’s surname – wore a white dress to exchange vows with the prime minister.

The last prime minister to get married while in office was Robert Banks Jenkinson in 1822.

Mrs Johnson used to work in the Conservative Party press office, which she joined in 2010, and two years later she worked on Mr Johnson’s successful campaign to be re-elected as mayor in London.

She became the party’s head of communications before leaving in 2018 to work in public relations for marine conservation organisation Oceana.

The couple were first romantically linked by the media in early 2019. In February 2020, they revealed that they were engaged and that she was pregnant.

Their son, Wilfred, was born last April.

Mr Johnson and his previous wife, Marina Wheeler, announced in 2018 that they were divorcing after 25 years of marriage.

He was previously married to Allegra Mostyn-Owen.

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