Elizabeth and Philip: Photos From the Royal Wedding, 1947

Queen Elizabeth II has been on the throne for so long (60 years) and of course has been in the public eye for even longer (she’s 86 years old) that it can be a bit disconcerting to encounter photographs of her as a bride, or a newlywed. After all, unlike the engaging young couple whose royal wedding in London sparked a media frenzy in the spring of 2011, Elizabeth has always appeared more distant, more removed, from the sort of everyday pleasures and pains that define the lives of mere commoners.

[Buy the LIFE book, Queen Elizabeth II: 60 Years on the Throne.]

But in November 1947, when she wed Prince Philip (born Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark), Elizabeth allowed the world to glimpse, briefly, another side — a less severe and less purely ornamental side — of her life. In photographs made that day, Elizabeth looks like brides all over the world have looked, from time immemorial: a bit nervous, a bit self-conscious, a bit overwhelmed … and happy.

[MORE: See all of TIME.com’s coverage of Queen Elizabeth II.]

Here, on the 65th anniversary of that long-ago royal wedding, LIFE.com offers a series of photographs — including some that did not originally run in LIFE — made by magazine staffers like Nat Farbman and Frank Scherschel (pictured at left, on the day of the nuptials). In an article that ran in the Dec. 1, 1947, issue of LIFE, meanwhile, the magazine’s editors took pains to remind readers that, two years after the end of the Second World War, England and Europe — while on the mend from war’s ravages — were still, in some regards, reeling from the aftereffects of the conflict.

What’s also so clearly evident in the language of the piece (below) is the enduring respect the magazine’s editors had for what England had achieved when, for a good part of World War II, the island nation had, in essence, stood alone. The verbiage might be over-the-top — but the sentiment is straight from the heart.