IF royal romances are rarely fairy tale, Harry Windsor and Meghan Markle's seems to have all the required elements, brought up to date for a modern audience and with added stardust. In the latest chapter yesterday, in a stunning setting, clearly in love and loved by those witnessing it, they married with the full pomp and majesty of state. Now and for ever after.

The overture to the wedding had its discordant notes, with the will-he won’t-he counterpoint, and on the day Meghan Markle's father Thomas didn’t, with Charles, the Prince of Wales, stepping in to take the Hollywood star down the aisle – or at least the second half of it, as she walked the initial steps alone. There had been a belief that her mother Doria would accompany Meghan but she sat looking on, the only member of the Markle family to attend the ceremony.

It may not have been intended but those few steps seemed to encapsulate how the monarchy has modernised, changed by circumstance, or perhaps simply run out of options. In 1936 Edward VIII was forced to abdicate after insisting on marrying the divorcee Wallis Simpson - and here was Charles, the present heir to throne, escorting another divorcee to marry his son while his wife Camilla, herself divorced, looked on. Seemingly, all very modern.

That Markle is an actress, of mixed race, added to the sense of change, as did her back story. There cannot be many duchesses (the Queen bestowed the Dukedom of Sussex on Harry before the wedding) touched by random gun violence. The father of one of her best friends was shot by a man who had just murdered his own family.

There was anticipation about Markle’s dress, whether it would be white, and it was. It was also simple and full with a 20-foot train, designed by Clare Waight Keller, the first female head of Givenchy, and the former chief designer for Pringle of Scotland.

The invited guests were a mix of the regal, the groom’s extended family, the multi-cultural and the multi-faith, and - in a nod to society's obsession with celebrity - the starry, with George Clooney and Oprah Winfrey prominent, actor Idris Elba late of this shore but now, like them, in Hollywood with, inevitably, David Beckham grinning in the pew beside his poker-faced wife Victoria.

In Windsor Castle courtyard over 2,000 people had been chosen to get a viewing place outside St George’s Chapel (they were advised to bring their own sandwiches), while an estimated 100,000 lined the procession route, many have being there for days. The chapel is just a short walk to where Harry went to school, Eton College, and is the same church where he was christened, and his father and Camilla wed.

The approach to the castle, as well as streets further into Windsor, had been purged of the homeless by a rather heavy-handed police operation. A volunteer’s double-decker bus intended for the displaced to sleep had been impounded by the police. However, some of the ingenious rough sleepers taped union flags to their sleeping bags to merge with the hardy monarchists and bedded down on their original pitches.

The sight of the first limousines coming into the cordoned-off route set off a flurry of flag-waving and cheering, although there was little to be seen through the windows as the cars sped past. The major characters arrived in separate limousines, Meghan in a 1950 Rolls-Royce Phantom 4, then her mother and, finally, the Queen and Prince Philip.

Just before 11.35 Harry walked the few hundred yards to St George’s Chapel with his best man, William, both wearing the long frock coats of the Blues and Royals regiment, both with the crown of major on their tunics, which seemed a curiously lowly rank. They waited, seated, and chatted between themselves.

Seven minutes before noon Charles and Camilla arrived, she wearing a hat, like a huge furry frisbee, set at an angle, followed a minute later by the Queen and the 96-year-old Duke of Edinburgh. Neither seemed to acknowledge their grandchildren as they pushed past them to take their seats.

Another of those looking on was Elton John who had re-written Candle in the Wind as Goodbye England’s Rose for Harry and William’s mother Diana's funeral in 1997. However the music here was sombre, almost funereal, even the black Kingdom Choir’s version of the Ben E King song Stand By Me seemed melancholy.

When Charles and Diana married, before the union broke down in public recrimination and then tragedy, the royal biographer Hugo Vickers wrote in his diary, “the Royal Wedding is no more romantic than a picnic amid the wasps”. This one, judging by the way the couple smiled and held hands throughout, was clearly romantic for the principals ... even if those outside still had to cope with the insects.

The ceremony was performed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, but the man who dominated the event was the head of the US Episcopalian Church, Michael Curry, with an address which you could describe as barnstorming, or histrionic - depending on your point of view.

Certainly the 14th century chapel could rarely have experienced anything like it as he referenced Martin Luther King, slavery and the redemptive power of Jesus’ love. The saviour, Curry assured the congregation, may have been able to walk on water but he hadn’t arrived the same way from across the Atlantic. He certainly brought the spirit of America-style religion with him, though.

Just after 1pm the smiling couple walked back up the aisle to the steps of the chapel outside and exchanged their first married kiss. Then it was to the open coach for the slow procession with the full grandeur and pomp of state, bathed in glorious sunshine and the adoration of the crowds. Just like in the fairy tales.