The royal wedding that turned into a royal farce

Angela Mulholland, CTV.ca News

A royal wedding is historically a grand spectacle and cause for great excitement and pageantry. But not so, for the upcoming marriage of Prince Charles to Camilla Parker Bowles.

Since the impending nuptials were hastily announced in February after a threatened media leak, the couple has faced one embarrassing glitch after another.

And that has served to deflate the bubble of excitement, reports Royal biographer Robert Lacey.

“This wedding has been such a sequence of cock-ups,” Lacey recently told CTV News. “It's not really spreading the joy and cheer in Britain that a marriage of any sort -- let alone a royal marriage -- is supposed to spread.”

First, there was word that the future titular head of the Church of England would not be marrying in a church, since both Charles and Camilla have gone through divorces.

The civil ceremony was seen as an appropriate compromise by liberal Anglicans who noted that Henry VIII created the Church so that he could marry his mistress. But for the more conservative within the church, this wedding remains a sham and a source of embarrassment.

Next there were questions over the legality of a civil ceremony for an heir to the throne. But those fears were later put to rest by Britain's lord chancellor.

And then there was the problem of where to hold the ceremony. Originally, it was to have been held at Windsor Castle, but that plan was later nixed amid concerns that the licence required for the castle would last for three years, allowing anybody to marry there.

But all of these were petty annoyances compared to the stunning announcement from Buckingham Palace that the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh would not be attending the ceremony but would take part in the blessing at Windsor Castle afterwards.

The Palace insisted the move was not a snub but was simply intended to keep the ceremony a low-key affair.

But with the Queen's irritation with Camilla no secret, Lacey, like many other royal watchers, have found that explanation difficult to swallow.

“Her attitude seems to be that this whole thing has been a terrible mess and it's already done a lot of damage to the monarchy,” Lacey says referring to Charles' affair with Camilla during his first marriage.

There have also been questions about whether Camilla should become Queen once Charles ascends the throne. While legal experts decided that she could, the prince's office at Clarence House announced she has chosen not to take the title.

Royal biographer Christopher Warrick believes that Camilla didn't want to become embroiled in the debate because she likely doesn't much care.

"I don't think that Camilla has ever been interested in titles. I don't believe that she's ever interested in becoming queen," he told CTV News. “I think that the point here is that Charles wanted her and always wanted her really as his wife and she's wanted him as her husband."

The final embarrassing last-minute change came when the prince's office was forced to announce the nuptials had been bumped a day to allow Prince Charles to attend Pope John Paul’s funeral.

The delay reportedly cost an extra £1 million in policing services alone – never mind the fees the caterers and florists must surely have added.

Throughout all the confusion about the wedding, Britons have grown irritated and disinterested. Tabloids have declared the wedding “jinxed” and “cursed.”

A recent ICM poll for the Daily Mail found that 65 per cent of respondents believe the monarchy will be left weakened by the marriage -- up from 49 per cent when the wedding plans were first announced back in February.

And only 31 per cent said they planned to watch the marriage on television.

It's all a far cry from Charles' first marriage to Lady Diana Spencer at St. Paul's Cathedral in July, 1981. Then, 3,500 were on the guest list, more than 600,000 people lined London's streets, and another 750 million or so watched on television.

This time, only 30 invited guests will witness the service at Windsor town hall. No TV cameras will capture the service, although there are plans for coverage of the subsequent blessing service.

Lacey says it's clear that the majority of the British public is just not that excited about the wedding.

“Prince Charles regularizing his relationship with Camilla should put things straight. But in fact, as all these practical details have gone wrong and as people have looked at it, it just doesn't fill anybody with joy.”

John Aimers of the Monarchist League of Canada doesn't see the wedding that way. He has sympathy for the royal family who, he point out, are really only human.

"You know, they're damned if they do and they're damned if they don't," he recently told CTV's Canada AM.

"Royalty has to try to be all things to all men. When it fails, they're wrong, and when they do something that's pleasing, you will always get critics that say this isn't right. They can't win."

Aimers believes that in the end, it doesn't matter a whit to Prince Charles whether the British public are excited or not. The important thing is that he is finally marrying the woman he has loved for so long.

“By and large, the British public is behind them on this."

"People are going to be happy for this man."