Saturday was a special day for Mel B, aka Scary Spice, as she married hairdresser Rory McPhee in a lavish ceremony at St Paul’s Cathedral. But if what Mel B wants, what she really, really wants, is her former bandmates showing their support, she must be feeling sorely disappointed: three of the other four Spice Girls snubbed her wedding.

Mel B, who had permission to wed in St Paul’s thanks to receiving an MBE for charity work, was tying the knot for the third time; she was previously married to backing dancer Jimmy Gulzar and film producer Stephen Belafonte. She also has a child with actor Eddie Murphy.

She told Hello! in 2022 that her bandmates endorsed her latest match, saying: “It’s really special to me that they like Rory so much, because they’ve never liked any of my boyfriends and they’ve been quite clear about that.” Yet apparently their approval didn’t extend to watching her walk down the aisle, nor attending the subsequent £28,000 party at Shangri-La in The Shard.

One no-show, Victoria Beckham, did at least acknowledge the event. She posted a picture of her and Mel B to Instagram on Saturday with the message “Sending love to you @officialmelb! @rorymcphee is a very lucky man! xx”. She then posted a black-and-white video of the band all together, and congratulated the happy couple.

However, the fashion mogul was “out of the country” due to her hectic work schedule, according to a source, for the ceremony itself.

But Victoria wasn’t the only one putting a lie to the famous Spice Girls lyric “friendship never ends”. Geri Halliwell also skipped the wedding: reportedly to support husband Christian Horner, the principal of Formula 1 team Red Bull, at the British Grand Prix – although one imagines he could have managed without her. Mel C had the more concrete excuse of a tour date in Stockholm, however she did make it back to the UK the previous weekend for Glastonbury.

That meant Emma Bunton was the only one present at the wedding, dressed in an on-brand, Baby Spice-hued pink mini dress with a matching fascinator.

None of the bandmates were part of Mel B’s extravagant hen do in Tunisia. She posted a video to Instagram last week showing a dancing group, all wearing bikinis in her signature leopard print, soundtracked by the Spice Girls song Say You’ll Be There – a pointed dig at absent friends, perhaps.

Is this a sign that the rift between the band has deepened even further, scuppering hopes of a possible reunion?

Earlier this year, it sounded like a major announcement was imminent about plans for 2026 to mark the 30th anniversary of the Spice Girls’ breakout hit Wannabe – whether a one-off concert or full-scale comeback. In February Mel C said on Apple Music 1: “We’re now getting together because we know if we’re going to do anything, we have to start planning things to get things right.”

That chimed with Mel B’s comments. In 2024 she told The Telegraph: “I’m planning on reuniting with the Spice Girls but there’s no announcement yet. The Spice Girls is one of my priorities in life.” The band even teased us with a mini-reunion at Victoria’s 50th birthday party in 2024, dancing to their hit song Stop: a delighted David Beckham shared the video on Instagram.

But relations between the women, which have always been fractious, seem to have broken down again. Instead of repeating that group solidarity at Mel B’s 50th birthday in Leeds in May, Victoria and Geri failed to appear – a snub they compounded by missing her wedding yesterday.

Given the band’s history of toxic spats, it’s hardly surprising. Geri and Mel B have a particularly fraught dynamic. Speaking on a podcast in 2024, Mel B made an explosive claim, saying: “No one knows how old Geri is. No one’s seen her passport. I know we’ve travelled the world, but I still don’t know how old she is.”

That followed an even more shocking revelation in 2019. Mel B told presenter Piers Morgan that she and Geri had had a secret tryst. “[Geri] is going to hate me for this because she is all posh with her country house and her husband, but it’s a fact. But it wasn’t a thing, it just happened and we just giggled at it.” Mel B then added, of her ginger bandmate: “She is going to kill me.”

Geri’s representative responded with a statement that included: “What has been reported recently is simply not true and has been very hurtful to her family.” In 2022, Mel B branded Geri “really f—king annoying”, while Geri allegedly told a friend that she “can’t bear to share the stage” with Mel B.

Mel C has also spoken about backstage drama, saying that she felt bullied into doing their 2007 tour and would be made “the villain” if she refused. Alleged diva behaviour on tour included New Age convert Geri halting video shoots to meditate, and Victoria demonstrating her fashionista status by taking phone calls from celebrities like Donatella Versace.

When Victoria refused to join the band’s 2019 reunion shows, a livid Mel B dressed up as her for Halloween with a sign saying “No I am not going on tour”.

It was Geri who first quit the group, in 1998. The last time the full band performed together was the 2012 London Olympics closing ceremony. It sounds like Mel B is the most eager to reform: she admitted in 2024 that she had been kicked out of the Spice Girls group chat for badgering them, and colourfully described her bandmates as “d—heads”.

Part of the disparity may well be financial. The enormously successful Beckhams have a joint net worth of £500 million thanks to their numerous enterprises, while Geri and her husband are estimated to be worth £440 million.

In contrast, Emma and husband Jade Jones have a net worth of £24 million, as does Mel C, while Mel B’s fortune ­– decimated during her marriage and ruinous divorce from Belafonte – is around £4.7 million. When a judge ordered her to pay £270,000 in legal fees and more than £3,000 a month in child payments, she was forced to sell her Hollywood mansion and move back home to Leeds.

A big Spice Girls payday would make all the difference. The group were reportedly close to signing a £1 million a-piece Netflix deal and agreeing a multi-date anniversary tour before their feuds reignited.

There is still one solution that could cement their legacy without them having to spend much time together: recording a hologram-style show like London’s astonishing Abba Voyage, which features the Swedish band as digital avatars. That would only require a few weeks together, and then the show could run – without them – for years. We’ve also seen the impossible happen this past week: the warring Gallagher brothers reunite for a triumphant Oasis tour.

But if the Spice Girls can’t even come together for Mel B’s wedding, it doesn’t bode well for their ability – or desire – to prioritise future plans for the band, even if they could prove incredibly lucrative. Sadly, it seems there is a limit to girl power.