Charles and Camilla: Their big day arrives at last

The Prince of Wales will finally marry Camilla Parker Bowles today.

He will make his long standing companion his wife and formalise the controversial relationship that has spanned more than 30 years.

As Charles slips a wedding ring crafted from Welsh gold on to Camilla’s finger, she will become the most senior female member of the Royal Family after the Queen.

Significantly, she becomes an HRH when she weds the heir to the throne in the simple civil ceremony at Windsor’s Guildhall.

Mrs Parker Bowles will take on the title the Duchess of Cornwall, dropping her well-known double barrelled surname from her first marriage.

The Queen will be absent from the non-religious service.

Along with the Duke of Edinburgh, she will not see her eldest son and new daughter of law take their vows despite the fact that every other senior member of the Royal Family will be present.

The Queen, supreme governor of the Church of England, will only attend the live televised blessing in Windsor Castle afterwards.

Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, will preside over the service of prayer of dedication in the gothic surrounds of the 15th century St George’s Chapel.

Prime Minister Tony Blair, a host of foreign royals and dignitaries and an array of showbiz names will be among the 800-strong congregation.

The wedding, which was meant to have happened yesterday, has been dogged by problems – not least of all the absence of the groom’s mother – since news of the couple’s engagement leaked out.

Just days before the couple were due to marry, they were forced to postpone their nuptials from Friday to Saturday after they realised they would clash with the Pope’s funeral, which Charles out of duty knew he must attend.

The couple’s ceremony had to be slotted in ahead of three other brides and grooms getting married at the same venue.

Charles, 56, and Camilla, 57, had already faced a switch in venue from the Castle to the local town hall after aides discovered licensing Windsor would allow members of the public to marry there too.

Rows also erupted over whether Camilla would ever be known as Queen when Charles becomes King.

Technically she will, although aides maintain she will choose to be known as Princess Consort instead.

Controversy also raged over whether the “jinxed” event was even legal and a journalist sparked a security scare and a major headache for police by driving a fake bomb around within the Castle walls 72 hours before of the big day.

As the Prince finally makes his former mistress his wife, he will be watched by just 28 guests in the Guildhall’s modest Ascot Room on Windsor’s High Street.

Prince William, 22, and 20-year-old Prince Harry will be there to see Camilla become their new stepmother.

After spending the night apart – Charles staying with William and Harry at his Gloucestershire home Highgrove and Camilla at the Prince’s London residence Clarence House – the pair will travel to Windsor Castle separately in the morning.

The teams of designers charged with masterminding Mrs Parker Bowles’s wedding day look will be ready to help put the finishing touches to her ensemble.

Couturier Anna Valentine of Robinson Valentine designed the outfit, milliner Philip Treacy her hat, Hugh Green of Hugh and Stephen will be tending to her locks, and Julia Biddlecombe, known as Julia B, is in charge of her make up.

Linda Bennett, who founded LK Bennett, made her shoes.

Flouting tradition, Charles and Camilla will see each before the ceremony and leave the Castle together, travelling in the same car to the Guildhall at around 12.25pm.

The first glimpse of the bride will be as she leaves Windsor Castle with Charles via the King George IV gate and is driven the short journey down along the Long Walk through Windsor Great Park, through the Cambridge Gate, up Park Street, and on to the town’s High Street.

They will be chauffeured in a Rolls-Royce Phantom VI, painted in Royal claret livery.

The car, presented to the Queen in 1978 for her Silver Jubilee, was also used by the Earl and Countess of Wessex for their Windsor wedding in 1999.

Guests are expected to be ready and waiting for the bride and groom at the 17th century Guildhall with its elegant Portland Stone pillars.

From the Royal Family there will be: Prince William, Prince Harry, Duke of York and his daughters Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie, the Earl and Countess of Wessex, the Princess Royal, her husband Rear Admiral Timothy Laurence and the Princess’s children Zara and Peter Phillips, Princess Alexandra, Viscount and Viscountess Linley and Daniel and Lady Sarah Chatto.

From Camilla’s family: her father Major Bruce Shand; her son Tom Parker Bowles and and his fiancee Sara Buys; her daughter Laura Parker Bowles and Laura’s boyfriend Harry Lopes; brother Mark Shand; sister Annabel Elliot and husband Simon; niece and nephew Katie and Ben Elliot; and niece Alice Irwin and her husband Luke.

Camilla will make her grand entrance with Charles, who will be wearing a traditional morning suit, and be met by superintendent registrar of the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead Clair Williams, who is performing the service, and registrar Claire Paterson, who will record the wedding in the marriage registers.

Inside the Guildhall, the high profile bride and groom will move to the Mayor’s Parlour to have their details checked and confirmed by Ms Williams

Guests will be seated in the Ascot Room in three rows of five chairs on either side of the aisle while Charles and Camilla will occupy two dark brown padded chairs in front of a matching table.

A stern-looking Queen Victoria will be watching over the proceedings. Her portrait hangs in the room which is decorated with a central chandelier and a pair of stained-glass windows along one side.

There will be no music during the simple, brief 20-minute wedding and no additions, such as poetry or other readings, to the standard register-office order of ceremony.

No media will be allowed inside and aides are keeping further details strictly private.

William and Tom Parker Bowles, who is also Charles’s godson, will act as witnesses and be in charge of the rings.

Charles and Camilla are not saying which of three forms of words they will be using for their wedding vows.

After being declared man and wife, the royal couple, William and Mr Parker Bowles will sign the register of marriages and then also, along with all other guests present, sign the royal register of marriages and baptisms.

The Queen will not be there to add her signature.

As the newlyweds emerge from the Guildhall as man and wife, the future king and his new wife HRH Duchess of Cornwall are expected to pose for a moment on the steps where the world’s media will be waiting.

Hundreds of photographers, cameramen and journalists – branded “bloody people” by Charles on a ski trip last week – will have descended on the town en masse.

Scores of people are also expected to line the pavements of the high street - although how the public will react to the royal bride is difficult to gauge.

The victorious Grand Slam-winning Wales Rugby Union team wished the couple well, with a message sent to them saying: “The very best of luck for a happy day and a wonderful life together.”

As Camilla leaves the Guildhall, she will now, by marrying the heir to the throne, be the second most senior female member of the royal family, ranking ahead of Sophie, Countess of Wessex and Anne, the Princess Royal.

Camilla will also technically be the Princess of Wales, but has chosen not to use the titles – still intrinsically associated with Diana, Princess of Wales.

There is no planned walkabout for the newlyweds as they depart.

Security will be intense with Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair having already identified the event as one of a number of “obvious and enormous” targets for terrorists.

At around 12.55pm, Charles and and new wife Camilla will leave by car and return to the Castle.

The Queen, who is hosting a lunch for the visiting foreign royals, is not planning to formally greet the couple back at Windsor.

An hour and half later, she will join them for the service of prayer and dedication which will begin at 2.30pm.

Among the guests who will attend the blessing, along with the Queen and all senior British royals, will be foreign royals, eight governors-general, the Prime Minister, leaders of opposition parties and nearly 800 other guests including screen and stage stars invited as personal friends.

Rock star Sting, comic Joan Rivers, Charles’s biographer Jonathan Dimbleby, broadcaster Sir David Frost, musician Jools Holland and actors Rowan Atkinson, Edward Fox, Kenneth Branagh, Joanna Lumley, Richard E Grant and Prunella Scales will all be there.

Also expected to attend are Hugh and Emilie van Cutsem, who reportedly fell out with Charles and Camilla over the seating arrangements at their son’s wedding.

The Prince has invited some of his ex-girlfriends including Lucia Santa Cruz, who introduced him to Camilla, Lady Jane Wellesley, granddaughter of the late Earl Mountbatten, Lady Amanda Knatchbull, and Sabrina Guinness.

Camilla’s cuckolded ex-husband Andrew Parker Bowles also has a seat.

William and Harry’s former nanny Tiggy Pettifer, Zara Phillips’s boyfriend’s Mike Tindall, and close family friend Tara Palmer Tomkinson and her parents Charles and Patti are also reported to be attending.

Diana’s brother Earl Spencer and the late Princess’s sisters Lady Sarah McCorquodale and Lady Jane Fellowes will not be there, nor will the Duchess of York, William’s girlfriend Kate Middleton and Harry’s girlfriend Chelsy Davy.

During the religious proceedings, Charles and Camilla, will acknowledge their “sins and wickedness” and pledge to be faithful to each other.

Charles was still married to Diana and Camilla to Andrew Parker Bowles when they committed adultery together.

Rather than choosing more newly-written prayers of penitence for divorcees, the Prince and the new Duchess of Cornwall will join the congregation in reading the strongest act of penitence from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer.

Charles and Camilla will kneel and repent, saying: “We acknowledge and bewail our manifold sins and wickedness, Which we, from time to time, most grievously have committed, By thought, word and deed, Against thy Divine Majesty, Provoking most justly thy wrath and indignation against us.”

Charles and Camilla’s wedding rings will also be blessed and the Queen along with the Royal Family, Camilla’s relatives and the whole congregation will be asked by the Archbishop to pledge to support the marriage.

The newlyweds are to refer to their “love for one another” in a prayer they will say alone.

Music includes Bach’s ‘Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland’ and excerpts from Handel’s Water Music, said to be favourites of the couple.

Readings will be given by former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey and actor Timothy West.

A Russian version of the Creed will be sung by a young Russian contralto.

The hymns chosen are Immortal Invisible, Love Divine All Loves Excelling, and Praise my Soul the King of Heaven.

A Celebration Fanfare, composed as a wedding present by the Welsh composer Alun Hoddinott, will mark the end of the service.

Afterwards at 3.15pm, Charles and Camilla will leave by the West Door.

On the chapel’s steep stone steps, Camilla will be photographed alongside the Queen, Charles and stepsons William and Harry for the first time, symbolising her markedly changed position and her new role as a member of the Royal Family.

All eyes will be on the body language between Camilla and the Queen and her other new relatives.

The steps will be lined with 22 uniformed Brigadiers, Colonels, Major Generals and Group Captains, whose regiments, services and stations all have links with the prince.

Some 2,000 people, mostly supporters of the Prince and Camilla’s charities dubbed the “friendly faces crowd”, will be gathered in the Castle precincts, lining the Lower Ward.

The Queen will then host a private reception for the chapel congregation in the Castle’s state apartments, St George’s Hall, the Waterloo Chamber and the Grand Reception Room.

The Prince’s harpist Jemima Phillips will play for guests as they arrive but there will be no other music or entertainment.

Hot and cold food will be available as well as champagne to toast the couple who are due to depart for their honeymoon in Scotland via the Castle’s Henry VIII gate at around 5.45pm.

Police pipers will greet them at Aberdeen Airport and airport staff will make a brief presentation before Charles and Camilla drive to the privacy of their Highland hideaway Birkhall on the Queen’s Balmoral estate.

They are due to attend church at Balmoral on Sunday.

This royal wedding and the public’s response to it will no doubt be compared with the Prince’s first marriage to Diana at St Paul’s Cathedral on July 29, 1981.

More than 600,000 people lined the streets of the capital to catch a glimpse of the fairytale Princess in her ivory pure silk taffeta gown dress.

The ceremony, watched on TV by more than 750 million worldwide, was officiated by the then Archbishop of Canterbury in front of a congregation of 3,500.