The future wife of Britain's Prince Charles could hardly be more different from his first.
Young and beautiful, Princess Diana looked as if she had walked straight out of a fairy tale when she took Charles's hand in 1981 to the delight of an enchanted nation.
By contrast, Camilla Parker-Bowles is a 57-year-old divorcee and mother-of-two Princess Diana called a "rottweiler" and whom Britons have struggled to accept at the prince's side.
Where Princess Diana brought glamour and magic to the stuffy House of Windsor, Mrs Parker Bowles has a more matronly, country-loving image and clearly feels more at home in royal circles.
Mrs Parker-Bowles has had trouble overcoming her reputation as a marriage-wrecker. As her relationship with Prince Charles was collapsing, Princess Diana famously told an interviewer "There were three of us in this marriage - so it was a bit crowded".
Even the Queen's husband Prince Philip told Princess Diana: "I cannot imagine anyone in their right mind leaving you for Camilla".
But since Princess Diana's death in 1997, years of astutely managed appearances drawing Mrs Parker-Bowles steadily closer to Prince Charles in public have now meant she is accepted as his long-term partner.
Polls show most Britons accept a Camilla-Charles marriage as inevitable and she has been sharing official rooms with him at his Clarence House residence in London for more than a year.
Previously married to a cavalry officer, Mrs Parker-Bowles has gradually swapped her garb of headscarf and green waterproof riding coat for Princess Diana-style outfits including shimmering dresses.
Born Camilla Shand in 1947 into an affluent family - her father was a wine merchant who took an aristocrat wife - she grew up on a country estate and was educated at a London school before going to finishing school in Switzerland and France.
Mrs Parker-Bowles social circles soon intertwined with Prince Charles'. Legend has it that in the early days, Mrs Parker-Bowles flirtatiously reminded Prince Charles that her great-grandmother, Mrs Alice Keppel, was long-standing mistress to a previous Prince of Wales who became King Edward VII. She then apparently said: "So how about it?"
The pair dated for a time but after princess Charles decided to follow a naval career, she married Major Andrew Parker Bowles.
Friends say Camilla gave Prince Charles, 56, the warmth, security and understanding denied him by his strict palace upbringing - providing advice as well as love. With her typical earthiness she referred to his visits as my "start-the-week" tonic.
The depth of the attachment between Prince Charles and Mrs Parker-Bowles was exposed to the public glare in 1993 when a secretly recorded tape revealed them engaging in intimate sex talk as well as earnest discussion about his royal work.
"Your great achievement is to love me," he says. "Oh darling, easier than falling off a chair," she replies.
Prince Charles's later admission of adultery on national television in a programme intended to give his side of the royal break-up story, was candid and widely taken to refer to Mrs Parker-Bowles.
The playful side of their relationship is seen in their nicknames for each other. Prince Charles calls her "Gladys," she calls him "Fred."
Mrs Paker-Bowles first affair with Prince Charles started in 1972 when they met on a windswept polo field.
"His world turned upside down and I don't think he ever really recovered from it," said Christopher Wilson, author of a book on the couple's affair.
Despite Prince Charles's ardour, friends say Mrs Parker-Bowles could not face becoming queen and previously turned down his offers of marriage.