SARAH VINE: I know the sad reason the Ramsays snubbed the Peatys… and it’s all because of Gordon’s shame

This Adam Peaty (or Adam Ramsay Peaty, to give his current full name) saga is fascinating; And not just because it’s a heated fight between celebrities.

There is something universal about the complex class and family dynamics that emerge; something that goes beyond just the individuals involved.

The good boy marries his daddy’s little princess, turns his back on his family, pulls the social ladder behind him and sails off into the celebrity sunset, while the ‘Muslim lover leaves his old parents crying at the builders’ house.

It’s Dickensian, Hogarthian; A timeless story of class, passion and the price of success. This is also a scenario that countless other families will be more or less familiar with.

To recap: Olympic swimmer Adam Peaty married chef Gordon Ramsay’s daughter Holly. The wedding took place at Bath Abbey and there were plenty of familiar faces, including the Beckham clan and their eldest, Brooklyn (more on those later).

If any union deserved the title of ‘My Big Naff Celebrity Wedding’, this was it: the triumph of money over pleasure. Even the Beckhams’ famous affair in 1999, when they both wore purple and sat on golden thrones, was classier.

The bridesmaids (the couple’s sisters) wore tight, garish red satin more appropriate for a nightclub than a church; The bride’s dress was covered in a strange, lacy-edged white satin shroud that might have been designed to make her look romantic and interesting, but the windy weather left her looking as if she were tangled in a sheet.

His arrival at the church was chaotic, blocked by a group of security guards whose presence gave the situation all the sophistication of Wetherspoon’s Saturday night go-out.

Amidst much pouting, Victoria Beckham came down wearing one of her own dresses, which she shared on her Instagram page, looking like a skintight prom dress with a slit in the front. ‘This is so flattering,’ she gushed, doing that annoying thing where ‘influencers’ film themselves posing back and forth in front of the mirror (I call it Insta-sway).

Yes, Lady B, you would be flattered if you have the body proportions of a prepubescent boy. On any normal woman – Peaty’s dear old mother Caroline, for example – it looks like a giant condom.

Speaking of which, Ma Peaty and her husband Mark were conspicuous by their absence; Their invitation had been canceled after Adam’s aunt Louise took a swipe or two out of her and the Ramsays for not inviting Caroline to the bride’s glamorous hen night at the Soho Farmhouse, which Holly’s mother Tana was also attending.

There were also other flaws, including the stipulation that if Adam’s father Mark was to attend, he would probably have to sit at the back of the church so as not to stain the extended Ramsay family later with his unmasked face, poor chap.

Adam’s brothers James and Richard were also excluded. Result: The Peatys continue to be ostracized from their son’s new family and his mother is left ‘heartbroken’. Honestly, considering how rude and ungrateful Adam was towards them, I wouldn’t waste my energy if I were him.

I guess the question is; How much of this is Adam’s own doing, and how much of it is due to an emotionally inept young man being dominated by the short, curly, overbearing fiancee, now his wife, and her family?

Holly Ramsay with her father Gordon. Her dress was covered with a strange white satin shroud with lace on the edges, and thanks to the wind it looked as if it had been entangled in a sheet.

The bride’s arrival at the church took place in chaotic fashion, hindered by Wetherspoon’s security guards, who brought all the sophistication of a time out to the event.

There are obvious parallels here with the Beckhams’ own son, Brooklyn; He, too, has been a jerk to his mother and father, and like Adam’s, his own siblings are less than impressed with his actions – unlike Adam, Brooklyn is a spoiled child of privilege, so he doesn’t even have the excuse of being out of his social depth.

I’m sure there’s an element of that. It is often the case in families that one person becomes rich and/or famous, while others remain behind. Ramsay was with Gordon’s brother Ronnie, who, despite accumulating Michelin stars, was crippled by the brothers’ difficult, poverty-stricken upbringing.

It’s about class, it’s about shame and social embarrassment, it’s about snobbery. With their Soho House lifestyle and expensive tastes, the Ramsays think they are better than the Peatys, even though Ramsay himself has a similar background to theirs.

He was quite flamboyant: like Adam, he used his success to marry Tana, a nice middle-class girl who grew up on a farm in Kent. But like many people who pull themselves up by their own two feet, they don’t like to be reminded of it. Ramsay has built a new identity for himself and doesn’t want anything or anyone to disrupt that picture.

Peaty’s isn’t enough for him. They don’t drive fancy cars, they don’t wear designer clothes and they certainly don’t hang out in places where a cocktail costs £20.

If any union deserved the title of ‘My Big Naff Celebrity Wedding’, this was it: the triumph of money over pleasure. The bridesmaids wore tight, garish red satin, more appropriate for a nightclub than a church.

They live in the house where Adam grew up in Uttoxeter, Staffordshire. Among his other jobs, Mr. Peaty was a bricklayer and supermarket porter; Mrs Peaty was the nursery manager. It’s unclear what the siblings are doing, but they’re definitely not hanging around Harvey Nichols and taking selfies all day long. The family has a dog, but it is not a very fashionable breed.

In short, they are truly working class and have remained so despite their sons’ Olympic success and social ascension.

But I suspect their real crime, in the eyes of their new mother-in-law, was that they dared to challenge them. Worse, they act as if their feelings are just as important as anyone else’s.

Can you imagine such an assumption? Don’t they know their place? Don’t they know that if you’re rich and famous, you’re automatically more important?

Not only that, but they also failed dismally on the suck-up front that all celebrities demand. There’s no public gushing about how wonderful or down-to-earth Tana and Gordon are or what an amazing person the lovely Holly is. Equally inexplicably, they don’t seem to be overly impressed or in awe of them just because they have a shilling or two.

This seems to come as a bit of a shock to the Ramsays and, by extension, the Beckhams, who are used to being treated with kid gloves.

Gordon Ramsay made a splash: he used his success to marry pretty middle-class girl Tana (pictured). But like many people who pull themselves up by their own two feet, they don’t like to be reminded of it.

But perhaps the Peatys’ biggest crime – in the eyes of the Instagram-obsessed Ramsays – is their lack of polish. They never say it outright, but my guess is that the Ramsays don’t want Adam’s mom and the Peaty men around because they don’t want them to tone it down.

In fact, it is such a common experience for two families to come together through marriage; but this is much more the case when the union crosses class boundaries.

I’ve been to countless weddings where one side of the family was sent off to Outer Siberia for fear they’d get caught up in the free bar and make inappropriate comments about the bride’s sister or fight with someone’s uncle.

I remember being at a friend’s wedding when her mother, who spent days micromanaging everyone’s outfits for the photos, was embarrassed when the groom’s mother showed up in a flashy plaid dress and matching hat and insisted on ‘ruining’ all the photos.

There were more than a few culture clashes at my own wedding. Indeed, my father had a somewhat Ramsay-like figure; A self-made man, he was married to a beautiful woman several notches above him in class.

I think most of the assembled guests, including David and Samantha Cameron, George Osborne and others in their circle, were quite taken aback by him, too.

I think my ex-mother-in-law, who lived a very sheltered life in Aberdeen, was also a bit stunned by all this; especially my mother’s many outfit changes (each more gorgeous than the last), the exoticism of some of the guests, and my father’s generous use of the F-word during conversations.

But the point of a wedding is that none of these differences should matter, or at least shouldn’t. It doesn’t matter what people look like, how they dress, where they were born, or whether their father was a scaffolder or a Goldman Sachs banker.

Two people hopefully came together for all the right reasons, and it’s up to everyone to put their biases/prejudices aside and move on.

If the Ramsays had any class, they’d send Mrs. P a big bunch of flowers and treat their new father-in-law to a sumptuous lunch at one of Gordon’s restaurants.

I won’t hold my breath.