Garden Parties
The garden is the setting for the many Royal garden parties held by the Queen each summer. However, guests, while numerous and from all stations in life, are usually those who hold a public position, or are in some way of national interest. In 2008, three parties were for nominated members of the public; and four parties for the Centenary of the Royal Charter to British Red Cross, the Territorial Army, the 'Not Forgotten' Association and for those attending the Lambeth Conference.
The guests take tea and sandwiches in marquees erected in the garden. As a military band plays the National Anthem, the Queen emerges from the Bow Room and slowly processes through the ranks of assembled guests towards her own private tea tent, greeting those previously selected for the honour.
Read more about this topic: Garden At Buckingham Palace
Famous quotes containing the words garden and/or parties:
“A garden has this advantage, that it makes it indifferent where you live. A well-laid garden makes the face of the country of no account; let that be low or high, grand or mean, you have made a beautiful abode worthy of man.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Mixed dinner parties of ladies and gentlemen ... are very rare, which is a great defect in the society; not only as depriving them of the most social and hospitable manner of meeting, but as leading to frequent dinner parties of gentlemen without ladies, which certainly does not conduce to refinement.”
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