Boris Johnson secretly married Carrie Symonds at Westminster Cathedral
Westminster Cathedral #WestminsterCathedral
Boris Johnson married his girlfriend Carrie Symonds at Westminster Cathedral in London over the weekend, according to UK newspapers including the Daily Mail and The Telegraph.
The British prime minister tied the knot in front of 30 guests, including close friends and family, on Saturday, the publications said.
No. 10 Downing Street confirmed the marriage to the BBC, saying that the couple were wed in a “small ceremony” on Saturday afternoon and planned to celebrate with friends and family in summer 2022.
The couple had sent out save the date invites for July 30, 2022, just days before the small ceremony at Westminster Cathedral, according to The Telegraph. The ceremony was so secret that some top aides only found out about the marriage afterward, the publication added.
Johnson and Symond’s one-year-old son, Wilfred Lawrie Nicholas Johnson, was also said to have attended the wedding along with two official witnesses.
COVID-19 guidelines in the UK state that up to 30 people can attend a wedding indoors as of May 17.
A staff member told The Sun: “Yes, there was a wedding – it was the prime minister. His bride looked beautiful. She had a long dress with no veil.
“He was extremely happy, as you can imagine. He looked very smart in a very dapper suit. She came down the aisle and he didn’t take his eyes off her. They read their vows then shared a kiss. They looked besotted,” they added.
Their son Wilfred had also been baptized at the Catholic cathedral in September 2020, The Telegraph reported at the time.
Symonds, 33, the Conservative Party’s former head of communications, is Johnson’s third wife. Johnson, 56, is twice divorced and has four children with ex-wife Maria Wheeler, and is also reported to have two other children he fathered outside of his marriages.
The couple’s relationship was first reported in June 2019. They became the first non-married couple to move into Downing Street together upon Johnson’s election as prime minister the following month. Symonds confirmed they got engaged at the end of 2019 in a private Instagram post, the BBC previously reported.
Johnson is also the first British prime minister to get married while in office in almost 200 years – Lord Liverpool was the last prime minister to do so when he married Mary Chester in 1822.
No. 10 Downing Street did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.