Prince Harry was not invited to Peter Phillips’s wedding to Harriet Sperling, and he believes Prince William is behind the snub. Phillips is set to marry the nurse in the Cotswolds this weekend in what has been described as an intimate celebration for family and friends.
The timing makes the guest list harder to ignore. Harry, 41, is said to have expected at least an invitation to the Peter Phillips wedding because his first cousin once sat in St. George’s Chapel for his own 2018 marriage to Meghan Markle, a detail that now sits at the center of a new royal rift.
A friend of the couple said Phillips and Harry have not spoken for several years and have simply lost touch, which is the explanation being given for why the invitation never came. But Harry, who is 43, does not accept that account. He is said to believe William pressured Phillips not to invite him, and that his brother has been pushing relatives to take sides.
That suspicion lands because Harry has known Phillips since childhood and spent summers with him at Sandringham, where royal cousins once ran around with the Waleses, Freddie and Ella Windsor, and the Gloucesters. Phillips himself recalled those summers in a 2016 television interview, describing the setting as one where there was plenty of space for children to play.
The bond has looked thinner in recent years. In 2024, Phillips praised William and Kate as a “fantastic team” and called Kate “remarkable” in an interview, a public nod that now reads differently against Harry’s belief that the family has closed ranks around the prince of Wales. Harry has also been out of touch with most of his family for almost four years, following Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral in 2022, and he met his father for the first time in 19 months last September.
Phillips is Princess Anne’s son and King Charles’s nephew, which makes this more than a private falling-out at a country wedding. The guest list is being watched as a sign of how far Harry has drifted from the royal circle that once included him by default. Other family names are expected to appear at the wedding, including guests linked to Zara Tindall’s side of the family, while Andrew is also understood to be excluded from the celebration.
What remains unanswered is whether William actually influenced the invitation list or whether Phillips has simply let an old friendship fade. Either way, Harry is not going to the Cotswolds this weekend, and the wedding will go ahead with the family divide already written into it.
