King Charles and Queen Camilla are today celebrating their 21st wedding anniversary.
The couple’s romantic journey has been far from straightforward or conventional, but 56 years after they first met, the royals are celebrating the special milestone.
Their romance has long been intertwined with public scrutiny, secrecy and at times controversy.
King Charles and Camilla first met at a polo match at Windsor Great Park in 1970, though they ultimately tied the knot at a civil ceremony at the Windsor Guildhall, followed by a marriage blessing at St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle, on April 9, 2005.
Despite the Church relaxing rules on divorcees remarrying three years prior, the then-Prince Charles and his wife opted for a civil service instead.
Both had been previously married. King Charles’s wedding to Diana, Princess of Wales had been famously dubbed the “wedding of the century,” while Camilla had spent 22 years married to Andrew Parker-Bowles.
The former Prince of Wales and Diana shared 15 years of turbulent marriage, and subsequently divorced in 1996, before her untimely death a year later. It was this relationship that kept Camilla and her future husband’s budding romance a secret.
According to the King’s authorised biography, he had begun the affair with Camilla in 1986.
King Charles and Queen Camilla are today celebrating their 21st wedding anniversary
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Two decades later, the King found himself happily married to who many describe as his lifelong love.
Following the quiet service, the couple began their honeymoon on the Balmoral estate, a personal favourite of the King’s mother, Elizabeth.
Last year saw the royal couple celebrate their China wedding anniversary, in which Camilla shared her secrets for a happy marriage with the monarch.
“Well, I suppose it’s just sort of friendship, really. Laughing at the same things, getting on with life,” she explained.
King Charles and Camilla married on April 9, 2005
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King Charles and Camilla, joined by children Prince Harry, Prince William, Laura and Tom Parker-Bowles
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“I suppose doing this [on a royal tour] takes up most of the time.”
At the time, the couple were in the middle of a busy engagement in Italy.
“We are always going in different directions, like ships that pass in the night really,” Camilla noted. “We whizz past each other. In fact we have got a bit of a catch-up this afternoon!”
She revealed that, despite their esteemed positions as the Head of State, they still find time to buy each other meaningful gifts.
The civil ceremony was quieter than the ‘wedding of the century’ between King Charles and Diana, Princess of Wales
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“Well, I have got something. Because it’s China,” Camilla told reporters in Italy.
“[But] we are going to do that when we get back. We are going to save that. Otherwise you can’t really, you have to rush it.
“You don’t have time to say anything. I think we might dig into our pockets and pull something out at the end of the day.”