According to Yahoo News/Reuters, the Queen isn't attending her eldest son's wedding to respect his and Camilla's wishes to keep the wedding "low key."
http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/reuters/brand/SIG=pd7i95/*http://www.reuters.com British Queen to Miss Wedding of Charles to Camilla
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By Peter Griffiths[/size] LONDON (Reuters) -
[size=-1]Britain's Queen Elizabeth will not attend the wedding of her eldest son Prince Charles to his long-time partner Camilla Parker Bowles, adding to an air of chaos that has surrounded plans for the day. [/size]
The queen planned to stay away to respect the couple's wish for a low-key wedding, the palace said. But some royal watchers said the move would further embarrass the royal family and add to an air of farce around the April 8 ceremony.
"Mothers always go to your wedding whoever or wherever you are," royal photographer Arthur Edwards told Sky News. "It is just another snub."
The wedding has been dogged by controversy since it was announced on Feb. 10, with newspapers claiming the queen and the heir to her British throne are engaged in a bitter row over how some of the marriage plans have unravelled.
Charles was forced to change the venue from Windsor Castle, the queen's royal residence west of London, to Windsor Town Hall because of difficulties in getting a license for the castle that would not force it to throw the doors open to the public.
Constitutional experts have been arguing over whether members of the royal family are even allowed to marry in a civil ceremony in England.
"It has gone from a smooth operation to a fuss and now a farce," constitutional expert David Starkey told Reuters.
Under the headline "The War of the Windsors," the top-selling tabloid Sun newspaper reported this week that the queen is "horrified" by aspects of the wedding.
The paper said the queen was unhappy that the venue had to be changed and that the original plan for a low key event had started to spiral into something bigger.
Some opinion polls suggest the British public is opposed to the marriage of the Prince of Wales and Parker Bowles.
"This will further split the country, with people saying 'does the queen really believe in this marriage'," royal commentator James Whitaker told BBC News 24.
Buckingham Palace rejected suggestions of a row, stressing the queen would attend a church blessing of the couple by the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams to be held after the service.
"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," the palace said in a statement.
Constitutional expert Lord St John of Fawsley said the queen was right not to attend the civil service.
"It would have served no useful purpose," he told the BBC.
Charles was divorced in 1996 from the late Princess Diana, whose youthful beauty, charm and later marital difficulties captivated the British tabloid press for years.
Parker Bowles has faced an uphill struggle to escape the shadow of Diana, whose sudden death in a 1997 Paris car crash caused an unprecedented outpouring of grief in a nation which once prided itself on its stiff upper lip.
Camilla is widely depicted in the tabloid press as the "other woman" who has held Charles's affections since he first met her in 1970 and was considered by Diana to be the third person in her marriage to the prince. (Additional reporting by Matt Jones)