The Camilla-Charles Puritan Wedding Thingie



Above: A toast to "true love."

After all the bad voodoo surrounding the Camilla-Charles nuptials (And no, we don't mean the lamentable inclusion of Joan Rivers), some sweet magic broke through. For those of you into the fashion of the thing, Hello!Magazine does a fine job. The menu, if you are so inclined. The Old Gray Lady reports:

"They have waited for 33 star-crossed years, but today, Prince Charles and his longtime love, Camilla Parker Bowles, finally did it: They got married."

-- Finally.

"Their civil ceremony, conducted at 12:30 p.m. local time at the Guildhall, a two-story stone and brick building in the grand and imposing shadow of Windsor Castle, was watched by an assortment of their siblings, children, nieces and nephews, but not by anyone else.

"When they emerged, arm in arm, Camilla was not only Charles?s wife, but also a member of the royal family. Hereafter (unless she becomes queen, which she has said she does not want to be) the former Mrs. Parker Bowles will be known officially as Her Royal Highness, the Duchess of Cornwall.

"Cheered on by a happy crowd of royal-lovers who began massing on the streets of this small, monarchy-dominated town this morning, the couple bundled into a Rolls Royce, loaned for the occasion by Queen Elizabeth, for the short drive up the hill to Windsor Castle. There, the next phase of the day was to take place, beginning with a blessing of the wedding by the Archbishop of Canterbury in St. George?s Chapel.

"After the service, which would include readings, music and a bracing prayer of penitence for past sins, the couple and their 800 or so guests will repair to another part of Windsor Castle for the reception. Their hostess will be the queen herself, who, having been said in the past to disapprove of her son?s relationship with Camilla, has now resigned herself to the fact of their enduring relationship."

There is an eccentric relationship with inappropriate hymnals and the Windsors. More on which later:

"After a two-hour reception of finger food and a buffet, the couple will escape to the prince?s estate in Scotland for a honeymoon, where they will make a house party of it, with various friends and relations joining them. As of this morning, the estate was covered in six inches of snow."

And only two inches of that frost emanated from the Queen Elizabeth (Drumroll). From an earlier report by Sarah Lyall of the Old Gray Lady:

"The couple plan to follow their wedding ceremony with a religious blessing, a centerpiece of which will be a stern prayer of penitence from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer. The prayer, which they and their 800-odd guests will recite en masse before the archbishop of Canterbury, begins:

"'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.'

"If the combined admitted wickedness of 800 guests seems a lot, it's worth remembering that Charles and Camilla know a lot of people. Their eclectic guest list includes the king of Bahrain, the governor-general of Papua New Guinea, the British prime minister, the actor Kenneth Branagh, Camilla's ex-husband, several of Charles's ex-girlfriends, the writer John Mortimer, the comedian Joan Rivers, assorted courtiers and hangers-on, including someone whose official title is 'master of the horse.'"

A title, no doubt, that Charles takes on after the vows. (Okay, that was harsh) The wickedness of the King of Bahrain alone would take at least seven lifetimes to properly bewail. And of Joan Rivers -- whom we are still staggered that she shmoozed an invite -- and her manifold wickedness via Oscar, Golden Globe mean-shallow "reporting" (Averted Gaze), we will remain respectfully silent.