The private civil ceremony and televised religious blessing, broadcast around the world, drew a cheering crowd of 20,000 into the streets of Windsor, west of London, but still paled in comparison with the storybook wedding of Charles and Princess Diana more than 20 years ago.
Illicit lovers during their previous marriages, Charles and Camilla went on to vow — in public, before the Archbishop of Canterbury and Queen Elizabeth II — to be faithful to each other after repenting for their "manifold sins and wickedness."
Charles, 56, the heir to the British monarchy, and Camilla, 57, exchanged vows at Windsor’s 17th-century Guildhall and then held a mid-afternoon blessing ceremony and reception at nearby Windsor Castle.
They were declared man and wife before only 28 guests, and no media, in the upstairs Ascot Room of the Guildhall where William and Camilla’s eldest son Tom acted as witnesses.
Camilla, now officially Her Royal Highness, the Duchess of Cornwall, wore an ivorycream dress, matching full-length coat designed by Robinson Valentine, then switched into a porcelain blue silk dress for the service of blessing.
Crowds waving Union Jack flags lined picturesque streets under blue, chilly skies to catch a glimpse of the prince with his new Duchess of Cornwall — far fewer than the 600,000 who turned out in London in July 1981 when Charles wedded Diana inside the domed splendor of St Paul’s Cathedral.
They were rewarded with the sight of the smiling newlyweds who emerged arm-inarm from the Guildhall after a 25minute civil ceremony and climbed into a dark Rolls Royce limousine for a three-minute ride to Windsor Castle, the royal family’s weekend residence.
After their religious blessing, the couple also greeted 2,000 well-wishers who were chosen to gather inside the castle grounds away from the larger horde of spectators outside.
In a sober Church of England service of blessing in the castle’s Saint George’s Chapel, Charles and Camilla were asked by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, if they resolved to be faithful to each other, "forsaking all others, so long as you both shall live."
They replied: "That is my resolve, with the help of God."
With the rest of the congregation of nearly 800, including Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip, they also acknowledged "our manifold sins and wickedness which we, from time to time, most grievously have committed... We do earnestly repent."
The mood lightened at a reception in the castle afterwards, with guests ranging from continental European royals to pop stars and actors tucking into 16,900 canapes plus Welsh fruit cake.
Guests included Camilla’s cuckolded ex-husband Andrew Parker Bowles, a former British army officer. He was seen smiling and chatting animatedly.
Leaving the reception, Julie Cleverdon, who runs one of Charles’s charities, Business in the Communities, gushed over the enthusiasm inside Windsor. "There was a fantastic number of marvelous hats," she told AFP.
The queen, too, was praised by guests for her good humor, as she offered two toasts, first to the winner of Saturday’s Grand National horse race and then to her son and new daughterin-law.
After the reception, the couple drove off in a dark Bentley decorated with balloons and with "Just married!" scrawled across the back window, en route to their honeymoon in the Scottish Highlands, at the royal residence Birkhall.
Charles and Camilla, who first met in 1970 and have been on-andoff lovers across the decades, have effectively lived as man and wife since the late 1990s, and now often appear together at official functions.
But many still hold the practical, country-loving Camilla responsible for the break-up of Charles’ marriage to the glamorous Diana, who died in a Paris car crash in August, 1997, a year after her divorce from Charles.
Saturday’s wedding, originally planned for Friday, was hastily rescheduled in order not to clash with the Vatican funeral of Pope John Paul II attended by Charles and by Prime Minister Tony Blair, one of the guests at Saturday’s blessing.
The arrangements were dogged by gremlins from the beginning, with a forced change of venue, a volley of legal objections and the decision by Queen Elizabeth not to be present at the wedding ceremony.
A tabloid newspaper also exposed security flaws on Thursday by driving into Windsor Castle with a fake bomb, and even on Saturday, Charles was embarrassed by front-page newspaper photos showing him shaking hands at the Pope’s funeral with the much-criticised president of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe.
In keeping with tradition, Charles spent the night before the wedding apart from his bride-to-be at Highgrove, his country mansion in the west of England, with sons William and Harry, while Camilla remained at Clarence House, the couple’s official residence in London.
