Boris Johnson marries Carrie Symonds in a secret wedding

(CNN) – UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson married his fiancee Carrie Symonds in a secret wedding at Westminster Cathedral in London.

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

The spokesperson added that the couple will celebrate with family and friends again next summer.

The stealth event, described by PA Media as a “secret wedding,” took place in front of close friends and family, according to various reports in British newspapers.

“Congratulations @BorisJohnson and @carriesymonds on your marriage today,” wrote UK Secretary for Work and Pensions Therese Coffey in a Twitter post.

Children’s Minister Vicky Ford also tweeted a congratulatory message.

“Many congratulations to @BorisJohnson and @carriesymonds and much love to Wilf. So many weddings have been delayed and interrupted by the covid. Life is always better with love, “wrote Ford.

On April 29, 2020, Symonds gave birth to the couple’s first child, Wilfred. In the same month, Prime Minister Boris Johnson was hospitalized with coronavirus.

Later in 2020, Symonds made their first joint television appearance with Johnson to thank NHS workers for treating him at the hospital and for the birth of their baby.

The marriage comes just days after the couple was said to have sent date reservation cards to family and friends for an event on July 30, 2022.

The couple announced their engagement in February 2020.

Boris Johnson, 56, has four children from his second marriage to Marina Wheeler. The two announced that they would separate after 25 years of marriage in September 2018, shortly after which Johnson’s relationship with Carrie Symonds was confirmed.

He was also previously married to Allegra Mostyn-Owen for six years.

Boris Johnson could marry in a Catholic church because his first two marriages did not take place under Catholic ceremonies, Matt Chinery, an ecclesiastical and canon lawyer, said Sunday. Some had asked how a person who had been divorced twice was allowed to marry in a Catholic church.

Speaking to Times Radio, Chinery said that if you are a Roman Catholic, there is a requirement that your wedding be supervised by a priest or deacon and any wedding that is not conducted that way is “invalid” unless there is ” prior permission “from your bishop to marry outside of a Catholic Church.

“If you are a Catholic, a baptized Catholic, and your first two weddings were not in a Catholic church overseen by a Catholic minister, therefore the Roman Catholic Church does not recognize those two marriages as valid,” Chinery explained in reference to Johnson.

Carrie Symonds, 33, has enjoyed a successful political career, working as part of the campaign team that helped Johnson get re-elected as Mayor of London in 2012.

At age 29, Symonds became the youngest communications director in the history of the Conservative Party. Analysts say it was crucial in fixing Johnson’s famously sloppy personality during the campaign.

CNN’s Rob Picheta, Radina Gigova and Zahid Mahmood contributed to this report.