A Look Back at Camilla’s First Marriage to Andrew Parker Bowles—And Her Elaborate Wedding Dress

On July 4, 1973, almost exactly half a century ago at the Guards Chapel in Wellington Barracks, London, Captain Andrew Parker Bowles and Camilla Shand were married in front of 800 guests. Needless to say, it was the most talked-about social ceremony of that infamously hot British summer.

Both newlyweds had close ties to the royal family: Andrew Parker Bowles’s parents were friends of the Queen Mother, and he had served as a page at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. She, on the other hand, was already romantically linked to the then-Prince Charles at the time. (In 2005, she would eventually marry Charles, and in 2022, officially became Queen Consort following the death of the late Queen Elizabeth.) 

For her first wedding to Andrew Parker Bowles, Camilla wore a white gown with a bias-cut ruffle neckline and wide balloon sleeves of silk voile, embellished with a mini voile that echoed the pattern of the neckline. On her head, she wore a wide, foot-length white veil, which was adorned with the Cubitt-Shand tiara, sometimes referred to as the Cubitt tiara. The diamond-encrusted piece was added to Camilla’s family collection by her grandmother, Sonia Keppel Cubitt, which was then passed down by her daughter Rosalind Shand (Camilla’s mother). Years later, it was worn by Camilla’s daughter Laura when she exchanged vows with Harry Lopes in 2006.