As they climbed from the car, the bride beamed. Even Prince Charles wrenched a smile across his often pained face and refrained from glowering at the "bloody people" in the press pen.

The love of his life looked handsome in an elegant number that seemed decidedly white, even if the spin doctors insisted that it was oyster.

After the briefest of pauses they walked nervously into Windsor Guildhall for their civil marriage. There they joined their families, who had been brought in by bus from Windsor Castle — except the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh, watching on television at home over lunch.

The 28 guests were ushered in by a tense Sir Michael Peat, the prince's private secretary; after the debacle of the preparations this was his big day, too.

Then police confiscated a poster proclaiming "Make William your successor: Illegal, immoral, shameful". So, in a provincial register office, it took just 20 minutes to undo centuries of royal tradition. To marry the women they wanted, Edward VIII had to abdicate and Henry VIII had to behead, while Charles merely had to wait — albeit for 34 years. And as the sun poked through a grey sky, a much vilified divorced mother of two descended the steps, entitled to style herself Princess of Wales.

Instantly, the Duchess of Cornwall, as she prefers to be known, successfully executed her first royal wave, sporting a rock half the size of Gibraltar. A band, parked by the Roller, struck up Mustang Sally. It contains the admonishment: "You been runnin' all over town, guess you gotta put your flat feet on the ground". The band, a courtier confessed, was to drown out any booing.

Camilla continued to wave but Charles seemed loath to exercise his arm. Or his lips; there was no royal kiss. After more frowns he beckoned his future queen back into the Phantom, to the chagrin of well-wishers. Dickie Arbiter, former royal press spokesman, said: "It wouldn't have killed them to walk."

The 20,000 crowd was better than a lower league football match but modest against the million-strong army of subjects who cheered on the prince's first stab at marriage in 1981. As many tipped up for the wedding of Prince Edward and the Countess of Wessex.

Man and wife glided up the road to the castle for a service of prayer and dedication at St George's Chapel. Initially courtiers called this service a blessing but it was more a grudging acceptance by many within the Church of England of what they regard privately as a union between adulterers.

The couple's vicar for the day was Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who still looked in funereal mood after saying goodbye to the Pope. "He is not," said a Lambeth Palace source, "greeting the wedding with unalloyed joy." This was reflected in his simple choir dress, ecclesiastical equivalent of smart casual.

The church, it is said, does not regard the wedding as a "full celebratory event". When Robert Runcie married Charles last time, resplendent in cope and mitre, some found his dress prettier than the bride's.

Upstager this time was Tara Palmer-Tomkinson, who looked dressed to pull, and a bulky Cherie Blair, inexplicably in off-white. The chapel seemed to reverberate to the strains of Classic FM as an orchestra strummed light melodies. Prince William was composed, blowing kisses, while a fidgety Prince Harry just managed to behave.

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