 Prince Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles have announced they will marry next month. Will their ceremony be lavish or low-key? Sarah Ivison takes a look back at royal weddings through the decades. The 1940s: Queen Elizabeth married Prince Philip on November 20, 1947. They met in 1939, when she was just 13. They saw each other frequently at social occasions and in 1944, Prince Philip asked his cousin King George of Hellenes about marriage. In 1946, the prince proposed to the future Queen at Balmoral. It was first thought inappropriate to hold an elaborate wedding while the ordinary citizens of Britain struggled in the aftermath of war. But in the end it was decided to turn the wedding into a national celebration. The ceremony was the first time television cameras entered Westminster Abbey. There were 12 wedding cakes, and the main one was 9ft tall. In 1997, the Queen and Prince Philip marked their golden jubilee wedding anniversary with a grand celebration, to which politicians and dignitaries from all over the world were invited. THE 1960s: The Queen's younger sister Margaret married photographer, Antony Armstrong-Jones, on May 6, 1960. It seemed a true life romance, sealed in a picturesque ceremony at Westminster Abbey. The honeymoon was an exotic one in the West Indies. The couple had two children, David and Sarah, but in 1966, rumours emerged of a partial separation. In May 1978, the couple were officially divorced. The 1970s:
The Queen's only daughter, Princess Anne, was busy trying to build a show-jumping career when the press suspected she was involved with another show-jumper and army officer, Mark Phillips, but Buckingham Palace firmly denied this. Weeks later, their engagement was announced. It was later commented that their relationship paved the way for members of the Royal Family to marry commoners. The couple married on November 14, 1973 at Westminster Abbey. Thousands turned out to watch the grand procession along the streets of central London. But in April 1992, they too divorced. Six months later, the Princess Royal married Commander Timothy Laurence in a quiet ceremony in Scotland. THE 1980s: In 1981 the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer was the most talked about royal wedding of all. Crowds of 600,000 people packed London streets and an estimated global audience of 750 million watched on television as Charles, 32, and Diana, 20, exchanged vows at St. Paul's Cathedral on July 29, 1981. Britons enjoyed a national holiday to mark the occasion. Diana wore an Emmanuel designed dress with a 25 ft (7.62 m) train. The couple honeymooned in Hampshire and aboard the royal yacht Britannia in the Mediterranean. Diana gave birth to William Arthur Philip Louis on June 21, 1982, less than a year after the wedding. A second son, Prince Harry, was born on 15 September 1984. The couple separated in 1992. Diana spoke publicly about her own and her husband's infidelities - Prince Charles had a long-running relationship with Camilla Parker-Bowles - in a television documentary in 1995. They were officially divorced in 1996 and Diana was killed in a car crash in 1997. Prince Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles are to marry on April 8, 2005. Prince Andrew married Sarah Ferguson on July 23, 1986. The prince and Fergie, as she came to be affectionately known by the public, married at Westminster Abbey in an elaborately organised national event. The Queen gave them the titles, Duke and Duchess of York. The couple had two daughters, Beatrice and Eugenie. They separated in 1992, but continued to live under the same roof, sharing joint custody of their children. THE 1990s: Prince Edward married Sophie Rhys-Jones in a ceremony at St George's Chapel in Windsor on June 19, 1999. A relaxed and confident Edward winked at his radiant bride-to-be as she arrived at the altar for the last royal wedding of the millennium. The bride is now styled Her Royal Highness, the Countess Wessex, in accordance with her husband's new title of the Earl of Wessex. The Queen revived the 11th Century title in honour of the wedding. Edward will also be given the Dukedom of Edinburgh after the death of the Queen and the present Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Philip. A procession of open-topped, horse-drawn carriages carried Edward and Sophie to the reception in the St George's Hall in Windsor Castle, past crowds of several thousand people. The dress, by designer Samantha Shaw, consisted of a long, fitted coat with long sleeves and an ivory train, made from hand-dyed silk organza and hand-dyed silk crepe, with rows of pearls and crystal beading. In total, 325,000 cut-glass and pearl beads went into its design. She also wore a diamond tiara from the Queen's private collection and a pearl necklace that Edward gave her to mark the occasion. She gave the prince an 18-carat gold hunter pocket watch. A lucky 8,000 members of the public received tickets to watch the procession from inside the castle grounds. Others secured their spots along the route by camping overnight. Lady Sarah Frances Elizabeth Chatto (née Armstrong-Jones) is the only daughter of HRH Princess Margaret and Antony Armstrong-Jones, 1st Earl of Snowdon. She married Daniel Chatto on July 14, 1994. She wore a stylishly simple gown designed by Jasper Conran. The couple have two sons, Samuel, born in 1996, and Arthur, born in 1999. | 
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