The King and Queen will mark their 20th wedding anniversary on Wednesday by spending the evening as guests of honour at a state banquet in Rome.

The black-tie dinner, a highlight of the couple’s four-day state visit to Italy which begins on Monday, will be attended by prominent figures from Italian society.

The day will mark two decades since Charles and Camilla wed at Windsor Guildhall on April 9, 2005.

The civil ceremony followed a romance that began when they were in their early 20s.

Charles first met fun, confident Camilla on the Windsor Great Park polo field in 1970 when he had just left Cambridge University, a year before he joined the Royal Navy.

No marriage proposal came, despite the closeness between the pair and when the relationship cooled after Charles dedicated himself to his Navy career, Camilla wed cavalry officer Andrew Parker Bowles in 1973 and Charles later married Diana, Princess of Wales in 1981.

After Charles and Camilla both divorced – and Diana died in l997 – Camilla’s eventual emergence as Charles’ long-term partner was part of a carefully planned PR campaign masterminded by the heir to the throne’s spin doctor Mark Bolland.

Their first public appearance together was outside the Ritz hotel in London in 1999, dubbed Operation Ritz, where the mass of waiting photographers had been tipped off.

At their wedding reception, held the same day as the Grand National, Queen Elizabeth II said about their romance: “They have overcome Becher’s Brook and The Chair and all kinds of other terrible obstacles. They have come through and I’m very proud and wish them well.

“My son is home and dry with the woman he loves.”

The King spent Friday making final preparations for the state visit to the Republic of Italy but the separate state visit to the Holy See, the government of the Roman Catholic Church located in the Vatican – the world’s smallest independent state – has been postponed as the Pope is recovering from a bout of pneumonia.

With a number of Vatican events removed from the itinerary in Rome, the remaining engagements in the Italian capital have been spread over two days with extra elements added to some engagements.

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