LONDON, May 17: It had all the ingredients of a proper British royal wedding: romance, tradition, rain, and a gossip magazine feud.

Peter Phillips became on Saturday the first of Queen Elizabeth’s grandchildren to wed, marrying his Canadian bride Autumn Kelly in drizzly weather at a chapel at the queen’s Windsor Castle residence near London.

Phillips, 30, is the queen’s eldest grandchild and son of Elizabeth’s only daughter, Princess Anne. He is 11th in line to the throne.

Unlike his first cousins, Princes William and Harry — or his sister, equestrian champion and Beijing Olympics hopeful Zara Phillips — he has tended to stay out of the limelight.

Nevertheless, he accepted an offer from gossip magazine Hello! to allow its photographers exclusive access to the wedding for a reported 500,000 pounds (nearly $1m).

Hello! calls it “the fairytale romance which has bridged continents and social divides”.

But the rest of Britain’s celebrity-obsessed media was locked out, and predictably furious.

“What a start to married life for Princess Anne’s son Peter Phillips — cashing in on the accident of his birth and literally selling his grandmother to Hello! magazine,” the Daily Mail thundered.

Kelly arrived with six bridesmaids in sage green frocks, including her royal sister-in-law Zara. They carried the train of her gown up the chapel steps to keep it out of puddles.

As is perhaps inevitable at weddings, speculation focused on who would be next. Prince Harry was expected to formally present his girlfriend of four years, Chelsy Davy, to the queen for the first time.

Prince William’s off-again-on-again girlfriend Kate Middleton was also present, but William himself was unable to attend because he was at a friend’s wedding in Kenya.

Phillips and Kelly met in 2003 at the Montreal Grand Prix, when he worked for the Formula 1 racing team BMW Williams and she worked at the BMW hospitality suite.

He was determined to woo her on his own terms and did not initially tell her of his royal lineage. She has said she found out she was dating a royal when she saw him on a television programme about his cousin Prince William.

Kelly was raised Roman Catholic, but became a Protestant before the wedding. Under 300-year-old British laws, a royal who marries a Catholic loses his claim to the throne. —Reuters