The band’s repertoire includes one of Mr. Johnson’s favorite songs, Van Morrison’s Brown Eyed Girl. The prime minister told the BBC’s Desert Island Discs in 2005 that “you can have too much of Van Morrison,” but named the “cheerful” song as one of his favorites. Coincidentally, it’s the color of his new wife’s eyes.
Guests were pictured leaving number 10 later that evening. Among them was the ardent remainer Hugo Dixon, who has known Mr Johnson since their days together at Eton.
His golden vest appearance at the wedding came as a bit of a surprise as he wrote an open letter to Mr Johnson in the Guardian in 2019 asking him to stop Brexit and noting that they had partially “walked away” because of her Views on leaving the EU.
With the couple only allowed 30 guests, there were some notable absences, including John Whittingdale, for whom Ms. Johnson served as Secretary of Culture as a special adviser. Sajid Javid, another former Tory cabinet minister whom Ms. Johnson advised when they were seated on the front bench, also did not attend the wedding.
It has been speculated that Ms. Johnson’s friend Dixie Maloney, a corporate event organizer, planned the day.
Downing Street employees were as shocked as the public when they found that their boss had married. “It was a total surprise, totally unexpected,” said a Number 10 advisor who had been in the building the day before and saw no signs of the upcoming wedding.
“There were no deliveries. I can’t remember any traces of preparation. It was all choreographed so that there were no freebies, ”source number 10 told The Telegraph.
They added that they had “utter admiration” for how successfully the event was kept under wraps, adding, “It was a great example of forward planning.
Dapper PM is a long way from his first wedding
Mr Johnson looked dapper in a dark lounge suit and blue Tory silk tie – if still characteristically wobbly – in the first pictures posted of his wedding to Miss Symonds.
The picture is far from how he supposedly got to his first wedding to Allegra Mostyn-Owen in 1987 – without pants or shoes.
Ms. Mostyn-Owen, daughter of the Italian writer Gaia Sevadio and the art historian William Mostyn-Owen, and Mr. Johnson met at Oxford University. They were just 23 years old when they got married.
The ceremony took place at the Miss Mostyn-Owens family home in Shropshire, Woodhouse, a Grade I listed manor.
Mr Johnson had to borrow pants and cufflinks from John Biffen, a former Tory minister, after his wardrobe mistake. But Mr Biffen’s shoes did not fit, so the groom reportedly had no choice but to wear his own, dingier pair.
Accidents kept coming up on the wedding day as he reportedly misplaced the ring and lost the wedding certificate, which was later found in the pocket of the borrowed trousers.
During his speech, Mr. Johnson was harassed by a guest after he misquoted English author PG Wodehouse.
Ms. Mostyn-Owen reportedly said the wedding was the “end of the relationship rather than the beginning”. The couple divorced after six years.
Mr Johnson married Marina Wheeler, his second wife, just weeks after the divorce was settled. The couple had been childhood friends and had attended the European School in Brussels together.
They were married on May 8, 1993 in Horsham, Sussex Town Hall, near Mrs. Wheeler’s childhood home. The guest list included close family members and about five or six friends each, it was reported.
Ms. Wheeler was heavily pregnant with the couple’s first child at their wedding and gave birth the following month. They had four children together: Lara Lettice, Milo Arthur, Cassia Peaches and Theodore Apollo.
As a honeymoon, they stayed one night at a hotel in East Grinstead before returning to Brussels, where they lived at the time.
The couple had been married for more than 25 years before announcing their divorce in 2018, which was finalized two years later.