Queen Will, And Won't, Be There

Buckingham Palace said Tuesday that Queen Elizabeth II would not attend the civil marriage ceremony of her son Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles.

The queen would, however, attend the church blessing of the marriage at St. George's Chapel in Windsor Castle following the civil ceremony, the palace said.

The Press Association news agency reported that Prince Charles' sons, Prince William and Prince Harry, and Parker Bowles's children, Tom and Laura, were expected to be present for the April 8 civil wedding in the Guildhall at Windsor.

"The queen will not be attending the civil ceremony because she is aware that the prince and Mrs. Parker Bowles wanted to keep the occasion low key," a palace spokeswoman said on condition of anonymity.

"Clearly if the queen were to attend, the occasion would no longer be, by definition, low key," she said.

The spokeswoman insisted the queen's decision was "not a snub," saying the monarch is "very pleased to be giving the wedding reception at the castle" after the ceremony.

Charles and Parker Bowles are marrying in a civil ceremony because the Church of England — of which Charles will become supreme governor when he takes the throne — traditionally frowns on church marriages for divorcees whose spouses are still alive.

Charles, 56, divorced Diana in 1996. She died in a car accident the next year. Parker Bowles, 57, also is divorced, and her ex-husband is still alive.

Privately, reports CBS News Correspondent Elizabeth Palmer in London, they appear to be a genuinely loving couple. Publicly, they're stumbling toward the altar, as Britain's tabloid press finds hitch after hitch that the prince's highly paid staff didn't anticipate.

First, the couple had to change the venue of the wedding from the Windsor Castle to the local town hall. Then came a suggestion that the ceremony would have to be open to the public.

The change is a practical one: under British law, registering the castle as a wedding venue would mean opening it up to commoners' weddings. The prince's Clarence House office said holding the service in the 17th-century town hall also would allow the public to see the newlyweds arrive and leave, and would include the town in the day's events.

A blessing led by Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams after the ceremony will still take place at the castle's St. George's Chapel, followed by a reception at the castle's state apartments.

And the latest allegation is that Charles and Camilla aren't allowed, under a 19th century law, to marry in a civil ceremony.

Royals watchers tell Palmer the intense scrutiny is inevitable: A widowed prince marrying his longstanding lover, who is a Catholic divorcée, is charting new and sensitive ground.

Royal historian David Starkey notes, "This determination to marry with a church blessing, but not to marry in church, and (for Parker Bowles) legally to be queen, but to call herself prince's consort, it represents vividly, and encapsulates vividly, the extraordinary confusion we have."

The royal household also said Tuesday that Charles will not have a best man for the ceremony. Heirs to the throne are usually accompanied by two "supporters" - the royal term for best man - when they wed, and it had been speculated that Charles's sons William and Harry would perform the role.

"There will be no best man or royal supporters. It's not that sort of wedding," said a spokesman for the prince, speaking with customary anonymity.

"The two boys will have a role throughout the wedding in so much as being by their father's side."