Meet Lady Amelia Spencer, the 30-year-old niece of Princess Diana marrying her college sweetheart after more than a decade of dating
Maria Noyen
- Lady Amelia Spencer is one of the seven children of Charles Spencer, Princess Diana's brother.
- She was five when Diana died in a car crash and grew up away from the spotlight in South Africa.
Amelia Spencer is one of Princess Diana's many nieces and nephews from her three siblings, Sarah, Jane, and Charles.
The late Princess Diana was among the three surviving children that her parents John Spencer, 8th Earl Spencer, and Frances Shand Kydd had. The Spencers are an aristocratic family with a long history of nobility and intermingling with royalty, according to Vogue.
Lady Amelia Spencer, 30, is part of the next generation of the family dynasty. Here's what we know about her life.
Amelia has a twin sister called Eliza. They are two of four children Charles shares with his first wife, Victoria Lockwood.
Amelia and her sister Eliza were born in July 1992 in London, UK.
Their mother is Victoria Lockwood, who had two other children with their father Charles: Lady Kitty Spencer, 32, and Louis, 29.
Kitty married her husband Michael Lewis, 64, a South African-born millionaire, in 2021 in front of family and friends at Villa Aldobrandini in Frascati, Italy, Harper's Bazaar UK reported.
Amelia's father Charles was in his early 30s when Diana died. During the funeral, he walked alongside his nephews, Prince William and Prince Harry.
As the youngest siblings in the Spencer family, Charles and his sister Diana formed a close bond, according to Tatler. He told The Sunday Times in 2021 that they grew up together at Althorp House, the family estate. Their childhood was impacted by their parents' divorce, he said.
"Diana and I had two older sisters who were away at school, so she and I were very much in it together and I did talk to her about it," he said.
Charles, who was three years younger than Diana, later played a significant role at her funeral in 1997. He gave a moving eulogy and walked alongside his nephews, William and Harry, as they followed her coffin at her funeral procession.
He later described that walk as the "most horrifying half hour" of his life and said he has had nightmares about it in the years since, according to The Guardian.
Amelia's mother is a former model, once described by Ralph Lauren as "the most beautiful woman in the world."
The pair had a relatively short engagement, with Charles proposing six weeks after they first met, according to Hello! Magazine.
Victoria, a former model, and Charles were married for eight years, from 1989 to 1997. Tatler reports that she was once called "the most beautiful woman in the world" by designer Ralph Lauren.
Victoria and Charles moved their family over to South Africa in 1995. After their divorce in 1997, she remained in South Africa with the children while he returned to the UK, The Evening Standard reports.
During a 2004 interview with Hello! Magazine, Victoria opened up about battling anorexia and substance abuse issues in her first marriage.
"There are no holidays from this illness," she said. "The price of freedom is constant vigilance, I attend recovery meetings every week and I will do so for the rest of my life."
Amelia was five when the family relocated to South Africa and only recently moved back to the UK.
During an interview with The Telegraph in 2021, Amelia and Eliza recalled the benefits of growing up in South Africa, away from the spotlight of the British media.
"Cape Town was all about the sea, hiking, horse riding, tennis, netball... After high school and university we were so happy that we didn't feel the need to move," Amelia said.
They lived a relatively low-key lifestyle there — she said they only ever really used their formal titles when visiting the UK, where their father continued to live. "Only in England. We've never heard [the titles] outside the UK. We don't use them, but people use them to us," she said.
"We were so lucky to have a normal, relaxed childhood. Public scrutiny didn't exist at all," Eliza added.
The sisters told the publication that they decided to move to the UK after finding their "confidence" at age 29.
While attending the University of Cape Town, Amelia met her partner Greg Mallett, who proposed after 11 years of dating.
According to Tatler, Mallett, a real estate agent, and Amelia met while studying together at the University of Cape Town. In 2020, he proposed during a trip the pair took to the Clouds Wine and Guest Estate, a boutique hotel and working wine farm in Stellenbosch, South Africa.
Speaking to Hello! Magazine about their engagement in 2020, Amelia said they had visited the location a few times on "special occasions."
"I remember every detail, from her little character traits to what the sun was doing at the time," Mallett said. "It was a really special memory for us both."
"It was so romantic, it was the most romantic night," she added.
Like their mother, Amelia and Eliza pursued careers in modeling. However, Amelia is also an experienced wedding planner.
According to her bio with her modeling agency, Storm Models, Amelia moved to London and started pursuing a career in modeling full-time.
"She is just beginning her career as a model and made her debut in a beautiful 20 page cover story with her twin sister Eliza for Tatler Magazine, and is living full time in London where she is developing her career and working full time as a model and an ambassador for a variety of luxury brands," the bio said.
"Away from the media spotlight Amelia has a very successful career as a wedding planner in South Africa, and has arranged 36 weddings to date," it added.
Amelia frequently attends high-profile events like New York Fashion Week and Royal Ascot.
In the past few months alone, Amelia has been spotted front row at runways at fashion weeks in New York and Milan, according to Harper's Bazaar and the Daily Mail.
During London Fashion Week in February, she went from spectator to walking the runway herself alongside her sister Eliza at the Josh Birch Jones show, Tatler reported.
Amelia has also made appearances at high-profile events with British royalty, such as the weddings of Prince William and Kate Middleton and Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, Tatler reports.
In 2022, she also shared an Instagram post of photos of her and Eliza with their significant others at Royal Ascot, an annual horse race event frequently attended by the royal family.
In March, Amelia and Mallett said it was "not long" until their wedding.
The pair shared the same photograph of themselves on Instagram on Thursday that indicated their wedding was on the horizon, with the caption: "Not long now..."
In the photo, which has the backdrop of Cape Town's mountains, Amelia is wearing a backless satin gold dress and Mallett a grey suit and white sneakers.
The post suggested that the couple may have chosen to tie the knot in South Africa, after Amelia previously told Tatler her father suggested a wedding at Althorp House, which is Diana's final resting place.
"It's our family home, it's beautiful. We would be very lucky to get married there," she told the publication. "But Cape Town is where we grew up and there is a possibility that we might do it here, too."
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