It was a fairy tale romance. The lavish royal wedding. A kiss on the balcony of Buckingham Palace. Cheers from adoring throngs below. Wait! That's the wrong story. The right one is much more, well, complicated, reports the AP. King Charles III and Queen Camilla met more than 50 years ago but their romance had to survive meddling families, marriages to other people, and no small amount of public ridicule before they finally married. On Wednesday, the royal couple celebrate their 20th anniversary, a milestone made all the more remarkable by the fact that for so long their love story was overshadowed by the fairy tale princess who came before Camilla. Now, Charles and Camilla's union has lasted five years longer than Charles' marriage to Princess Diana.
The road between the time they met in the 1970s and their marriage on April 9, 2005, was rocky. Charles, then a young naval officer, fell in love but was soon sent to sea for eight months. While he was away, Camilla accepted the proposal of a dashing cavalry officer. But they remained friends, even as Charles' courtship and marriage to Lady Diana Spencer played out before an adoring nation in 1981. And they were more than friends when both of their marriages crumbled in the mid-1990s. Many in Britain blamed Camilla for the extramarital affair that torpedoed his marriage to Diana, who was adored for her style and the human touch she brought to her charity work. That resentment flared when "the People's Princess" died in a Paris car crash in 1997.
The crash thrust Camilla back into the shadows. Over time, she was slowly reintroduced to the public, starting with a 1999 event where she and Charles made their first public appearance as a couple. Still, there were questions. Should a divorced man be king? Could Camilla ever be queen? But eventually the time was right. The union came on April 9, 2005, in a modest civil ceremony in Windsor, followed by a blessing ceremony attended by 800 people. There were a few boos from the watching crowd, but mostly cheers. The public mood toward Camilla has softened in the years since as she seems to make the king happy. (More British royals stories.)
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