IT WAS NEVER IF. JUST WHEN

Lady Eliza Spencer and Channing Millerd take us exclusively inside their fairytale engagement on a Greek island

- LAURA CRAIK

As love stories go, there can be few sweeter or more heartfelt than the one between Lady Eliza Spencer and her fiance, Channing Millerd.

The couple have been together for nine years, but met 15 years ago at a dinner party in South Africa organised by Greg Mallett, now the husband of Eliza's twin sister, Lady Amelia Spencer.

“The dinner party was quite close to where I lived at the time, and happened during a quieter time in my life,” says Eliza, who was raised in South Africa with Amelia and their older sister Lady Kitty, younger brother Louis, Viscount Althorp, and half-brother Samuel Aitken.

Born to Earl Spencer - the brother of Diana, Princess of Wales - and the former model Victoria Aitken, Eliza moved to South Africa with her family in 1995 to avoid the media attention attracted by the Spencer name, and thrived in the country's laid-back environs.

“I'd been single for about two years and wasn’t really socialising much. I didn’t plan to go, but Amelia and my best friend dragged me there,” Eliza laughs. “That's where I met Channing for the first time.”

He squeezes her shoulder as she turns to smile at him; they are a very tactile pair. “I know it sounds cliched, but he was the first person I'd been really drawn to in a very, very long time,” continues Eliza, 33.

“It took me by surprise that I even felt that way. But I quickly figured out that he was in a relationship, so that was the end of that. Then we crossed paths later on in our lives, and the rest is history.”