Five and a half decades after their first meeting, Charles and Camilla’s big day finally arrived on 9 April 2005. They were married in front of just 28 guests in a civil ceremony at Windsor Guildhall before a Church of England blessing at St George’s Chapel. It was a day many – possibly even the couple themselves – feared might never come. But on that breezy spring afternoon, they emerged from St George’s Chapel with a palpable look of relief on their faces.
“The two of them looked like the weight of the world had been lifted off their shoulders,” royal photographer Ian Jones later said. “[Charles] was happy, he just looked relieved and content that they were together at last.”
Prior to greeting the crowds of well-wishers, Camilla nervously patted her feathered Philip Treacy hat, which at one point looked in danger of being swept away by the wind. But she needn’t have worried, as once she and Charles reached the assembled crowds, they were met by nothing but goodwill and smiling faces.
“On that joyous day in Windsor, she was just happy to have got through it without anyone throwing an egg at her,” Penny Junor wrote in her 2017 biography, The Duchess.
Their nuptials clearly had the blessing of their loved ones, too. As they descended the steps of St George’s, they were followed by a beaming Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Philip and Charles’s sons – best man Prince William and his brother Prince Harry. Joining them outside were Princess Anne and Prince Edward, as well as Prince Andrew and his daughters, Beatrice and Eugenie.
Camilla, now with a new title, Her Royal Highness, wore two outfits on the day: at the civil ceremony, a cream silk dress with matching coat, topped off with a wide-brimmed hat, and for the service of prayer and dedication, a floor-length pale blue and gold-embroidered coat over a matching chiffon dress, topped with a feathered gold headpiece. Both outfits were created by designers Antonia Robinson and Anna Valentine, with the hats by milliner Philip Treacy.
Charles and Camilla had officially announced their engagement only two months earlier, on 10 February, with the then-Prince saying in a statement, “Mrs Parker Bowles and I are absolutely delighted. It will be a very special day for us and our families.” The bride-to-be’s five-carat Art Deco engagement ring featured an emerald-cut diamond flanked by six ‘baguettes’ and once belonged to King Charles ’s grandmother, Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother.
Responding positively to the news, Queen Elizabeth II released a statement from Buckingham Palace, saying, “The Duke of Edinburgh and I are very happy that the Prince of Wales and Mrs Parker Bowles are to marry. We have given them our warmest good wishes for their future together.”
But the build-up to the big day, originally scheduled to take place on 8 April, wasn’t without complications. In fact, it felt like the occasion might be cursed.
“At the last minute, they had to change the date because the Pope [John Paul II] died,” says royal author Katie Nicholl, explaining that the pontiff’s funeral in Vatican City – which Charles was expected to attend in place of the Queen – ended up being scheduled on the same day.
“And, as divorcees, they had to get married at the Guildhall and then have a blessing at the chapel, so it was beset with problems.” Worse still, just days before the ceremony, Camilla developed a crippling bout of sinusitis. “She was really ill, stressed,” said her long-time friend, Lucia Santa Cruz, the woman responsible for introducing Camilla and Charles decades earlier. “She literally couldn’t get out of bed.”
Even on the morning of her nuptials there were very real fears that Camilla might not make it down the aisle. On the day itself, it took four people to coax Camilla out of bed,” Penny revealed. “She still wasn’t feeling well, but now it was nerves more than sinusitis that kept her under the covers. She was terrified.”
Due to Charles and Camilla’s status as divorcees – Camilla was the first to marry an heir to the throne – a church service would have been frowned upon, so they were married during a civil ceremony at Windsor Guildhall, followed by a blessing by Dr Rowan Williams, then the Archbishop of Canterbury, at St George’s Chapel.
But as head of the Church of England, that still posed a problem for the Queen, who decided it would be inappropriate to attend the wedding itself.
“The Prince would have liked the Queen to be there, but she had been absolutely adamant in advance that she would not attend the wedding, not because she was against the wedding, but because, as the supreme governor of the Church of England, you don’t do civil ceremonies,” Charles’s official biographer, Jonathan Dimbleby, explained that year.
Thankfully, at the reception that followed, the monarch made it clear she was fully supportive of her son’s marriage, and gave what Katie describes as an “unusually sentimental” speech.
As the wedding coincided with the Grand National – one of the most important days on the Queen’s calendar – she likened Charles and Camilla’s relationship to a particularly challenging horse race, saying, “They have overcome Becher’s Brook and The Chair [fences at Aintree Racecourse] and all kinds of other terrible obstacles. They have come through and I’m very proud and wish them well. My son is home and dry with the woman he loves.”
Author Jilly Cooper, a guest at the wedding, later said, “Everyone was in stitches at the Queen’s speech. It was such a lovely, affectionate tribute.” And writing in The Duchess, Penny summed up the importance of her “perfect” words, saying they “laid to rest any lingering notion that she might still disapprove.”
Official photographs from the day – featuring a smiling Queen and Prince Philip, along with Charles’s sons William and Harry, Camilla’s father Major Bruce Shand and her two children, Tom and Laura – were taken in the White Drawing Room.
Although televised, the occasion was considerably more low-key than Charles’s first wedding, to Princess Diana, in 1981, which was held in front of 3,500 guests at St Paul’s Cathedral and watched by a global audience of 750 million.
And just as the wedding was a relatively pared down affair, Charles’s second honeymoon was dramatically different, too. While he and Diana took a sun-soaked 11-day Mediterranean cruise, he and Camilla headed straight to their beloved Scottish bolthole, Birkhall. With both sharing such a deep love of the great outdoors, they probably couldn’t have wished for a more idyllic setting.
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