Prince Harry's Ex, Cressida Bonas, On Her Lockdown Wedding

published 24 December 2020

In a new essay, Prince Harry's ex, Cressida Bonas, opened up about planning a "lockdown wedding" amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Bonas married Harry Wentworth-Stanley in a small ceremony that was nothing like what she expected when she got engaged.
In her essay, published in The Spectator magazine, Bonas wrote about the many mishaps of the day, including her struggles to find a dress, the stye she had on her eye, and getting lost on the way to the church.

Another day, another royal-adjacent wedding story. Merry Christmas to us all.

The latest bride with a royal connection to walk down the aisle was Prince Harry's ex, Cressida Bonas. The model and actress, who dated Harry from 2012 to 2014, tied the knot with another Harry—Harry Wentworth-Stanley—over the summer in a ceremony they put together in less than two weeks amid the coronavirus pandemic. Bonas wrote about the experience in a new essay for The Spectator magazine.

According to Bonas, the big day was far from perfect—it rained, she had a stye on her eye, and she actually got lost on the way to the ceremony, just to name a few of the bumps in the road—but "everything fell into place" when she saw forever Harry waiting at the end of the aisle.

"A supposedly 20-minute journey took an hour. We drove up and down a dual carriageway several times before eventually arriving at the church 40 minutes late," she wrote of the wedding day. "My dad seemed strangely quiet and I asked him if he was all right. He said: ‘It’s just like taking Sheba [his dog] to the vet.’ He didn’t want to do it, but knew he had to. He is very fond of my husband, Harry, by the way. But he didn’t want to let his daughter go."

Finding a wedding dress was also an ordeal. Bonas explained that just four days before the wedding, she was still searching for a dress. "Finding nothing, I remembered an old Whistles dress I once wore for a James Arthur music video," she wrote. "I went home and found the dusty frock at the back of my cupboard. After some ironing, it looked good as new."

In the end, however, having a "COVID wedding" actually freed Bonas to focus on what really mattered about the wedding: starting her life with her true love.

"Before we knew we were having a ‘Covid wedding,' we’d talk about the party, the guest list, the cake, people’s expectations, what it should or shouldn’t look like," she explained. "Having a small portion of Harry’s and my family in the church made it just simply special."

Congratulations to Cressida and Harry!