Introduction
ROD STEWART SANG ABOUT FOREVER — THEN ASKED PENNY LANCASTER TO SAY “I DO” AGAIN
By the summer of 2017, Rod Stewart had sung to generations of listeners about devotion, regret and the astonishing speed with which life passes. Yet at his home in Essex, he and Penny Lancaster marked a love story without an arena or a stage. Ten years after their wedding, they renewed their vows beneath a beech tree, surrounded by family and friends. For a singer whose unmistakable voice had traveled around the world, the words that mattered that day were spoken to one person.
The occasion began with a date already rich in memories. Stewart and Lancaster had married in Portofino, Italy, in June 2007. A decade later, they chose their Essex home for a ceremony attended by around 100 guests. Their sons, Alastair and Aiden, were there, along with several of Stewart’s older children and his granddaughter Delilah. The gathering reflected the family they had spent those ten years building and bringing together.
There is something different about a second promise. At a wedding, a couple speaks with hope about years neither can yet see. At a vow renewal, they know more about the people they have become. They have watched each other change, made a home around the demands of work and children, and learned which parts of a promise require daily attention. Lancaster spoke about the value of reflecting on ten years together and knowing that they still meant the words they said to one another. That thought gives the ceremony its emotional center.
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For Stewart, the setting also drew a gentle line between his music and his life. Fans have long heard him make a song feel like a confidence shared across a table. His gravelly phrasing can give a tender lyric the weight of experience; his exuberance can make an old tune sound newly alive. But a singer’s skill with a love song is no substitute for living alongside someone. In Essex, Stewart was there as Penny’s husband, making a choice in the presence of the people who knew them both.
That choice may resonate especially with listeners who have followed him since the early 1970s. They have seen the young man of “Maggie May” grow into an artist whose career stretches across decades. They have aged, too. A song that once sounded like an account of youthful confusion can acquire new meaning when heard after years of marriage, parenthood or loss. Stewart and Lancaster’s renewal invites the same kind of reflection: what does it mean to choose the same person again after time has shown you more of each other?
The ceremony did have its lighter moments. Lancaster later recalled that their dog, Bubbles, walked down the aisle and settled at her feet. It is a small detail, but an appealing one. For all the attention that follows a famous couple, their celebration made room for the familiar things that belong to a household. Family members gathered, vows were spoken, and even the dog found a place in the proceedings.
There was also a wider purpose attached to the celebration. Reports at the time said the couple donated money connected with the event to people affected by the Grenfell Tower fire, which had occurred in London weeks earlier. That gesture cannot lessen the tragedy, but it places their happy occasion in the world around them: a family celebrating an anniversary while recognizing that other families were grieving.