As the royal family looks to the (hopefully very distant) future when the Queen's reign will end, plans are being made for the coronation of her successor, Prince Charles.

According to one source, there are about "binders and binders" of documents regarding Prince Charles' coronation at Westminster Abbey (code-named "Operation Golden Orb"), and the coronation ceremony has recently been rewritten to modernize the language and make it shorter. (Clarence House, for its part, denies that any detailed plans were ever drawn up.) At the ceremony, Prince Charles and his wife Camilla are expected to be crowned side by side.

According to the Mail on Sunday, Prince Charles' coronation will be changed to "reflect modern Britain," but the vows will remain unchanged and the Anglican service will remain the same. However, Prince Charles wants the coronation to be "much cheaper" than his mother's ceremony, which cost 1.57 million pounds (equivalent to 46 million pounds today), officials told the magazine. Prince Charles is aware that the coronation will be paid for by taxpayers, and he wants to make it "worthwhile."

The coronation will be scaled back overall, not only in terms of money spent, but also in terms of the length of the ceremony (the Queen's ceremony will last more than three hours) and the number of people attending. The Queen was attended by 8,251 people, while according to the Mail on Sunday, Prince Charles had a maximum attendance of 2,000. It took 16 months from Queen Elizabeth's accession day (February 6, 1952) to her coronation (June 2, 1953), but Prince Charles hopes to have his coronation within a year of his accession.

The ceremony would be "shorter, quicker, smaller, less expensive, and representative of different community groups and faiths," a source told the Mail on Sunday. Prince Charles is likely to keep with tradition and make the ceremony an Anglican service, but there will also be places for other religions and Christian denominations.

"Throughout, a streamlined monarchy will be showcased," a source told the magazine.