Douglas Booth Wife: Who Is Bel Powley and How Did Their On-Set Romance Lead to Marriage?

Douglas Booth has spent years building a career across British television, period dramas and major international films, but away from the screen, his longest-running leading lady is fellow actress Bel Powley. The pair first met while working together on Mary Shelley and gradually went from close friends to a couple, then fiancé and fiancée, and finally husband and wife.

Booth and Powley married in London on October 28, 2023, after becoming engaged during a romantic picnic on Primrose Hill two years earlier. Their relationship has now lasted roughly a decade, and recent public appearances show that they remain together in 2026. They were photographed attending Wimbledon in July, more than two years after their wedding.

Both continue to have busy acting careers. Booth currently stars alongside Michelle Keegan in ITV crime drama The Blame, while Powley has joined HBO’s Harry Potter television series as Petunia Dursley.

Who Is Douglas Booth’s Wife Bel Powley?

Bel Powley is an English actress born Isobel Dorothy Powley on March 7, 1992, in London.

Acting runs in her family. Her father, Mark Powley, is an actor, while her mother, Janis Jaffa, has worked as a casting director. Growing up around the entertainment industry gave Bel an early introduction to acting, but she quickly established a career based on her own performances.

Powley started acting professionally as a teenager. Some of her early television work included M.I. High and Little Dorrit before she moved into increasingly prominent film roles.

Her international breakthrough arrived with The Diary of a Teenage Girl, in which she played Minnie Goetze. The performance earned considerable critical attention and helped establish Powley as one of the most interesting young British actresses working at the time.

She later appeared in A Royal Night Out, The King of Staten Island, The Morning Show and Everything I Know About Love.

It was another period drama, however, that changed her personal life completely.

How Did Douglas Booth and Bel Powley Meet?

Booth and Powley met while making Mary Shelley in 2016.

The film starred Elle Fanning as writer Mary Shelley, with Booth playing poet Percy Bysshe Shelley and Powley appearing as Claire Clairmont.

Their connection did not immediately begin as a traditional romance.

Powley later explained that they became extremely close friends first. As they spent more time together during production, that friendship gradually developed into something deeper.

She described them as becoming “inseparable friends” before realizing they preferred being together rather than apart.

That early friendship appears to have provided the foundation for the relationship that followed.

By 2017, they were increasingly comfortable appearing publicly as a couple and sharing occasional photographs together.

Despite both working in an industry where relationships often become constant entertainment news, Booth and Powley generally kept theirs relatively low-key.

Their Romance Became Serious

As their acting careers continued, Booth and Powley built a life together in London.

They attended premieres, fashion events and other public occasions, but rarely turned their relationship into a constant source of interviews.

The COVID-19 lockdown period brought another stage in their relationship as they spent extended time living together.

By then, they had already been a couple for several years.

Rather than rushing into marriage early in the relationship, they allowed things to develop naturally. Their engagement eventually came in 2021, and Booth chose a location that already carried important memories for them.

Douglas Booth Proposed on Primrose Hill

Booth proposed to Powley in July 2021 during a surprise picnic on Primrose Hill in London.

The location was not random.

Primrose Hill was also where Booth had first told Powley that he loved her several years earlier, giving the proposal a direct connection to an earlier stage of their romance.

Booth arranged a picnic filled with some of Powley’s favorite foods, including bagels, smoked salmon, chopped herring, egg mayonnaise and caviar.

Powley later admitted she had been completely surprised by the proposal.

The couple publicly shared their engagement shortly afterward but did not immediately rush to organize a wedding.

They remained engaged for more than two years before finally choosing an October ceremony in London.

When Did Douglas Booth and Bel Powley Get Married?

Douglas Booth and Bel Powley married on October 28, 2023.

Their ceremony took place at Petersham Nurseries in Richmond, London, a venue filled with greenery, flowers and glasshouses.

Instead of choosing an enormous formal venue, the couple wanted the wedding to feel glamorous without becoming overly polished.

That idea worked particularly well when heavy rain arrived during the celebrations. Powley later joked about guests’ shoes sinking into the mud and dresses becoming wet as everyone moved between locations.

Powley wore a custom Miu Miu wedding gown decorated with crystals and hand-sewn organza flowers.

The ceremony also incorporated her Jewish heritage. Booth and Powley were married beneath a chuppah made by Booth’s sister Abigail, an artist. The fabric was dyed naturally and embroidered with a line from Emily Dickinson.

Both of their mothers also gave readings during the ceremony.

Their London Wedding Continued With a Big Party

After the ceremony and lunch at Petersham Nurseries, the celebration moved into central London.

Guests traveled on traditional Routemaster buses to the Institute of Contemporary Arts, where Booth and Powley held their reception.

The trip itself became part of the entertainment, with drag performers joining the guests during the journey.

Once they reached the reception, the atmosphere shifted into a large 1990s-inspired dance party with mirror balls and music.

Their first dance was to Etta James’ I Just Want to Make Love to You.

Perhaps surprisingly, Booth and Powley planned much of the wedding themselves in only about six months.

Powley later said the shorter planning period actually helped because it forced them to make decisions rather than overthink every small detail.

Bel Powley Has Built a Strong Acting Career

Powley’s résumé has continued growing since the wedding.

She earned particular praise for playing Miep Gies in A Small Light, the historical drama about the woman who helped hide Anne Frank and her family during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands.

Powley has spoken about the significance of the project in connection with her own Jewish heritage and family history.

She also starred as Birdy in Everything I Know About Love and appeared in The Morning Show alongside Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon.

In 2024, Powley returned to the London stage in Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing at the Old Vic, another reminder that her career moves easily between film, television and theater.

Her next major television role brings her into one of the world’s most recognizable fictional families.

Bel Powley Is Playing Petunia Dursley in Harry Potter

Powley has officially joined HBO’s new Harry Potter television adaptation as Petunia Dursley.

Petunia is Harry Potter’s aunt and the wife of Vernon Dursley, who will be played by Daniel Rigby.

The casting introduces Powley to an enormous global franchise and represents another major step in her television career.

It is also a very different character from many of the emotionally complex young women she played earlier in her career.

By this stage, Powley is no longer simply regarded as an emerging British performer. She has accumulated nearly two decades of professional acting experience across very different genres.

Douglas Booth Is Starring in The Blame

Booth’s career is equally active.

In September 2026, he appears opposite Michelle Keegan in ITV’s six-part drama The Blame.

Booth plays DI Tom Radley, while Keegan plays DI Emma Crane. The two detectives investigate the murder of a teenage skater, only for the case to expose corruption, secrets and problems within their own police station.

The series combines crime mystery with a complicated love story, putting Booth back into a major British television role.

His earlier credits include Christopher and His Kind, Great Expectations, Romeo & Juliet, The Riot Club, The Dirt and The Sandman.

The Blame arrives almost exactly a decade after Booth met Powley while working on Mary Shelley, making 2026 another busy professional year for both actors.

Douglas Booth and Bel Powley Today

Douglas Booth and Bel Powley remain married as of September 2026.

They continue to make occasional public appearances together while generally avoiding excessive attention around their marriage. One recent example came at Wimbledon in July 2026, where they were photographed enjoying the tournament together.

Their relationship has now moved through several clear stages.

They met as co-stars in 2016, became close friends, fell in love, got engaged on Primrose Hill in 2021 and married in London in 2023.

What makes their story especially interesting is that neither person’s career has disappeared behind the other’s.

Booth continues taking prominent film and television roles, including The Blame, while Powley has built a respected acting résumé of her own and is preparing to reach another huge audience through Harry Potter.

Nearly a decade after meeting on a movie set, they remain both professional actors and longtime partners whose off-screen relationship has lasted considerably longer than the film production that first brought them together.