Monday, April 4 2005 10:49 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

London: The marriage of Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles will be a deliberately low-key event, just as well, given that the heir to the British throne's first trip down the aisle was one of the most famous weddings in living memory.

Britain came to a virtual halt on July 29, 1981 when Charles, then 32, wed the blushing young Lady Diana Spencer, at the time a mere four weeks past her 20th birthday.

A global television audience estimated at 750 million watched the couple marry inside London's magnificent St Paul's Cathedral in front of a congregation of 3,500 people, including the cream of Europe's nobility.

The wedding, seen at the time as a glorious romance as well as the union of the royal heir to the beautiful offspring of one of Britain's best-connected aristocratic families, was lavishly celebrated around the nation.

Images of the day remain vivid around the world, Diana arriving in a glass coach and climbing the steps of the cathedral, trailing the massive train of her ivory taffeta and antique lace gown behind her, while the groom waited inside resplendent in a Naval Commander's dress uniform.

In contrast, Charles and Parker Bowles will wed on Friday (April 8, 2004) in a civil ceremony before just dozens of guests and no television cameras, although a subsequent blessing service will be televised.

Unlike the mixed feelings harboured by many Britons towards Charles's new marriage, a second wedding for both participants, the 1981 nuptials were viewed almost universally as a fairytale union.

At the time, Britain's royal family was treated with far more deference and affection than is the case these days, while the business of marrying off the heir to the throne was an intensely serious one.

Charles had been linked to a series of earlier partners but none were considered bridal material. Parker Bowles herself, a flame of the prince long before Diana, was reportedly seen as perhaps a touch too worldly and sexually confident.

But the young Diana Spencer, with nothing more racy to her name than a notably limited education and a professed love of young children, not to mention no known ex-boyfriends, was perfect.

The fact she embodied the physical archetype of the willowy, blonde "English rose" and appeared to possess the necessary sense of fun to relax the famously formal prince endeared her to both the media and the country at large.

At first the marriage appeared to live up to the dream, with Diana swiftly producing sons William and Harry - "the heir and the spare", as they were dubbed - in apparent domestic bliss.

However, newspapers soon began to report strains in the royal marriage, including salubrious allegations of Charles's renewed relationship with Parker Bowles, and Diana's own infidelities.

Many more unsavoury revelations followed in the run-up to the pair's separation and subsequent divorce in 1996, a year before Diana died in a Paris car crash.

Indeed, the messy marriage break-up is seen by many royal commentators as the catalyst which ended the British public's traditional reverence for the monarchy, another love affair which turned sour.