When did King Charles and Queen Camilla get married? Royal pair celebrate 20th wedding anniversary

The King and Queen marked their 20th wedding anniversary on Wednesday, celebrating their intimate civil ceremony in Windsor, which took place in 2005 and stirred mixed reactions across the nation.

Their love story is far from a fairy tale. It’s a complex, multi-decade romance shaped by intense public scrutiny, previous marriages, and the involvement of various family members, all of which presented significant challenges along the way.

Given King Charles’s marriage to Princess Diana, their relationship had to remain largely out of the public eye for years.

Here’s a look at the King and Queen’s remarkable journey together.

King Charles and Camilla married on April 9, 2005, in a civil ceremony in Windsor.

Having first met at a polo match at Windsor Great Park in 1970, the two joked about their sordid family connection, with Camilla saying: “My great-grandmother was the mistress of your great-great-grandfather. I feel we have something in common.”

They then became embroiled in one of the biggest royal scandals in modern history. 

Despite Camilla marrying army cavalry officer Andrew Parker Bowles in 1973, while Charles proposed to Diana Spencer in 1981 (reportedly in Camilla’s garden), the two remained close and firmly in one another’s lives — so much so that Charles is Camilla's son Tom’s godfather. 

“They were a relationship that was never really allowed to get off because it wasn't deemed appropriate when she was Camilla Shand, which turned into an adulterous affair during Charles’s marriage to Diana that ultimately threatened to unhinge the monarchy because it was a scandal at the time,” says Katie Nicholl, author of The New Royals and Vanity Fair’s royal editor.

According to Charles’s authorised biography, he began an affair with Camilla in 1986, which came to a head in Andrew Morton’s explosive 1992 book Diana: Her Story that publicly revealed multiple instances of Charles’s betrayal.

The public’s scrutiny of Camilla intensified following the infamous 1995 Martin Bashir interview. Bashir asked Diana if Camilla had played a role in the breakdown of her marriage.

Diana famously replied, “Well, there were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded.”

After Princess Diana died in 1997, King Charles and Camilla faced significant challenges in publicly legitimising their relationship. Initially, Queen Elizabeth II disapproved, even refusing to attend Charles’s private 50th birthday party because Camilla would be present.

The Queen did not give her official approval until 2000, after attending a birthday celebration for the King of Greece, to which Camilla was also invited.

In February 2005, Charles and Camilla announced their engagement 35 years after their first meeting. Following a civil ceremony, which the Queen did not attend, Camilla was given the title Her Royal Highness The Duchess of Cornwall. It was also decided that Camilla would be known as Princess Consort rather than Queen once Charles ascended the throne.

“It has stood the test of time. They have stuck together through thick and thin, and they are each other’s greatest champions, and she will be with him every step of the way,” says Nicholl. She points out that the late Queen Elizabeth herself used her 70th accession anniversary speech to make it publicly known that it was her wish for Camilla to be known as Queen Consort. 

“It was certainly always Charles’s intention that Camilla would be Queen. Even though at the time of their wedding we were told she would be styled as Princess Consort, she was always going to be his Queen,” Nicholl says. She explains that by the time of the coronation, she was no longer referred to as Queen Consort Camilla, but simply as Queen Camilla.

“She was the mistress who wreaked havoc within the royal family, who had caused the breakdown of the Wales marriage. It’s not just the metamorphosis of a title, it‘s the metamorphosis of her whole public image,” says Nicholl on the stunning transformation.

“Having quietly and diligently worked in the sidelines and being committed to the crown and to duty — to have been like [Prince] Philip was, one step behind the monarch, but always there for him to lean on. The public has moved on from all the negative connotations of the past, which, you know, was 25 years ago.”

Nicholl argues that today, many view their relationship as "the ultimate love story," having withstood numerous challenges and obstacles. She is confident, with many others, that they will overcome this latest hurdle too.

In another setback for the couple's long and often challenging relationship, the King temporarily stepped back from public-facing duties in 2024 after announcing his cancer diagnosis.

The abnormality was first detected while he was undergoing treatment for an enlarged prostate. Though he was given the all-clear in late 2024, the King continues to face ongoing health concerns.

More recently, he had to postpone engagements on March 28 following a short stay in hospital after experiencing side effects from his cancer treatment.

The pair are on a four-day state visit to Italy, celebrating the UK's ties with the European nation.