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Pop star Melanie Chisholm, one fifth of the Nineties girl group the Spice Girls, has tied the knot for the first time at the age of 52. The singer married Australian actor and screenwriter Chris Dingwall at the Country House Cumbria on Saturday, following a legal ceremony in Sydney earlier this summer.
Three of her four former bandmates attended in person: Geri Halliwell, Melanie Brown and Emma Bunton. And you could say her absent bandmate, Victoria Beckham, was there in spirit, having designed the singer’s wedding dress.
Beckham had first loaned Chisholm a dress from her own wardrobe for the civil ceremony in Australia. The bride-to-be had bought Beckham’s “Lace Cami” style – described as “a tactile lace detail brings a feminine sensibility to the sensuous 1990s-inspired camisole slip dress” – ahead of the service, but it did not fit. Mentioning it in passing two days before flying out, Beckham stepped in and lent her friend her own version from her wardrobe, making it Chisholm’s “something borrowed”. Featuring a V-neck front and back, and crafted from crepe-back satin, the dress had delicate floral lace appliqué detailing and perfectly suited Chisholm’s pared-back aesthetic.
Afterwards, with Beckham due to be in the US for the Fifa World Cup, she offered to create Chisholm’s dream dress for her larger Cumbrian celebration. “Victoria wanted to make it much more personal to me,” Chisholm told Vogue. “She found some gorgeous vintage lace, and everything was really delicately dyed to the perfect shade. It’s very flattering, open at the back.”
The friends developed the dress together, attending fittings in London to perfect the design.
Even fans who remember “Sporty Spice” in her Kappa tracksuits, crop tops and trainers will recognise the style connections with her bridal look, which feels chic and minimalist. She kept the rest of her look simple too, forgoing a veil and jewellery, wearing her hair down with understated make-up, while her shoes were hidden beneath the floor-length skirt.
In some ways, the look was also a sweet nod to her Nineties fashion heyday, a connection she cemented even further with the outfit she wore for the reception. The bride changed into a grown-up version of a bespoke bridal Adidas tracksuit. Her new interpretation featured high-waisted, wide-legged trousers and a cropped jacket, made from ivory silk with white silk stripes. It was, perhaps, the perfect nod to her Sporty era.
This is Chisholm’s first wedding, making her one of a growing number of women marrying for the first time in their 50s (there were 20,500 in England and Wales in 2022, almost double the number eight years earlier). Chisholm was 49 when she met Dingwall on Raya, the dating app for celebrities. She has a 17-year-old daughter, Scarlet, from a previous relationship.
Being a first-time bride in midlife brings its own style conundrums: should you wear white? Is a dramatic wedding dress age-appropriate? But once those questions are settled, there’s one undeniable benefit to marrying later in life: you know what suits you and what you like.
That was certainly the case for Chisholm, whose style has evolved considerably since her tracksuit-wearing days as Sporty Spice. These days, she’s more likely to be seen in slip dresses or sharp trouser suits, sometimes with a peek of pretty lingerie underneath. She also received a seal of approval from the fashion world when she was cast in a JW Anderson campaign last year.
Among her standout looks of recent years are the cutaway black dress she wore to Beckham’s 50th birthday party and the edgy suiting she chose for the 2024 Brit Awards. Yet despite her midlife style evolution and embrace of more feminine silhouettes, she has retained that unmistakably sporty edge, often pairing red-carpet looks with trainers.
She’s become a particular champion of Beckham’s designs, especially her slip dresses. “There’s just something about her clothes… they have a real simplicity, especially the slip dresses,” Chisholm told Vogue. “They’re really feminine, but in a way that feels comfortable, and very me.”
Beckham has designed only one other bespoke wedding dress: the gown worn by her close friend, actress Eva Longoria, in 2016. It featured a fitted full-length skirt and a sweetheart-neckline bodice, reflecting the aesthetic of Beckham’s brand at the time. She also created the blue slip dress worn by Melanie B’s daughter, Phoenix, as her “something blue” at the Spice Girl’s wedding to Rory McPhee in 2025.
True to the group’s USP in the 1990s, each Spice Girl brought her own signature style to Melanie C’s wedding. Emma Bunton (Baby Spice) wore a pink-and-white plaid trouser suit, a nod to the colour most associated with her during the band’s heyday. Melanie Brown (Scary Spice) opted for something more risqué, choosing a sequinned long-sleeved mini dress. Meanwhile, Geri Halliwell (Ginger Spice), now known for wearing almost exclusively white, flirted with wedding guest etiquette in a cream-coloured two-piece with a delicate floral print that stopped it from reading as bridal.
This summer marks 30 years since the release of the band’s debut single, Wannabe. Three decades on, Sporty Spice’s confidence in dressing entirely as herself remains undiminished.
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