Skip to main content

Royal Garden Party



Spring is nature's way of saying, "Let's party!"
~ Robin Williams
Every summer, The Queen hosts at least three Royal Garden Parties at Buckingham Palace, and one at the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh. Over 30,000 people attend. Garden parties have been held at Buckingham Palace since the 1860's, when Queen Victoria instituted what were known as 'breakfasts.'  Today, the Garden Parties have evolved into a way of rewarding and recognizing public service. They are attended by people from all walks of life. Here is a link to see a Royal Garden Party.


With this traditional special event in mind, and because I love flowers, I thought it was time to host a Royal Garden Party in my retirement community. Over the 16 years that I have worked for my company, I have accumulated many different types of silk flowers. I also have two wonderful "sister-communities" within a 10 minute drive from my community who use silk flowers for their decorations, and was able to borrow flowers and vases from them.


For this Royal Garden theme party, I suggested to the residents that they should wear floral attire. Many of them did. I had a few couples come as royalty also. They were very clever. I also ordered paper crowns and made them available for all the residents to wear. I wasn't sure if the men would put them on or not, but they did when I said they were unisex, and that we needed a King and/or Prince for the evening among all the Queens and/or Princess there. (There are other crown options and accessories in my Activities Director's Store.)


I happen to have a King's crown that came from my husband's work (don't ask) and used it as part of my decorations. I am not sure where they got it, but it looked a lot like this King's crown. I wanted to make it a centerpiece, so I shopped for an over sided pillow that looked royal and/ or would go with the floral theme. I knew what I wanted, but when I was shopping I did not find something that was as "special" as a king would use. I did find something that went with the theme and with the color of some of my flowers.  I set the King's crown on the pillow and then surrounded it with flowers.


Flowers were placed in the Lobby for the reception. Residents ate appetizers and found the crown of their choice at the party. They had a special dinner in the dining room - where the servers had on the crowns also. After dinner, I had a guest speaker in the Auditorium from our local botanical garden. He brought a visual presentation to showcase the beauty that is local to our area. I called this an arm-chair tour of the garden. I had a good audience and those who attended really enjoyed it. I never know how an evening show will be accepted when it is not pure entertainment (music, drama, etc.)

This was a very easy theme night to put together. I personally enjoyed creating the 25+ floral arrangements. I do know that if I had asked, there would have been resident volunteers who would have loved to make the arrangements also. If you need to, make sure to ask the residents to help you and as Robin Williams says, "Let's Party!"

                                                                            
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

3 Styles of Scavenger Hunts

Boy is it hot outside! If you are like me you may still be looking for indoor activities that are fun for your residents to do. This activity that I will share with you can be done for different levels of care in your retirement community. I encourage you to share it with the other activity professionals that work in those other areas within your own community. The activity is the Scavenge Hunt. This can be done in three different ways and I will describe them below: 1)       The Stay Seated Scavenger Hunt v   Ask audience to bring in items they think will be asked for. Encourage them to fill their purses, pockets, bags, etc. and bring it to the event v   Make a list of items that they could bring with them v   Include items that would be funny, that might have a story to go with them, or that people would be surprised someone would actually have. (Green Stamps anyone?) v   See the list I used v   Cut the list into pieces and place them into a basket v   Ask
2 comments
Read more

Super Bowl Party for Seniors

It is almost here! The 46th Super Bowl game will be held on Sunday, February 5 in Indinapolis. Each year, residents in my retirement community want to have a viewing party for the big game. I believe that it is a fun program to make an activity out of, but not something that I must do every year. Mostly, I don't have this each year because there are not to many ways to change it up, so I don't want to have it become boring. (This is where your ideas would be great to hear!!) This year, we are going to have a party and I'd like to share with you the plans for the evening. Residents are now signing up for the program which is set to start at 6:00 p.m.  This time is perfect in my community because we still serve dinner at noon on Sundays and the residents usually like to attend for the food, if for no other reason. (I do charge them a fee for the food.) We will have the game showing on our big screen tv in the auditorium and tables and chairs set up for the residents to eat
2 comments
Read more

4 Pictures 1 Word Game for the Big Screen

Many of you who have played 4 Pictures 1 Word , know that this brain game is available as an app for your computer, tablet or phone for free. That is great, bu it does not allow a team to play and is not audience friendly if you wanted to present it at your retirement community (or other social gathering).  After some time and effort, I made a 4 Pictures and 1 Word game  slide show that you can use in your community. I did use the app for suggestions and the Internet for the pictures. I am glad to share this with you so that you will not have to spend the hours that I did in creating this game. If you get the urge to make one also, please come back to this blog page and share it.  I played this last week with a group of about 25 independent living residents.We did not get through all of the slides due to time constraints..... but I was glad I did not run out of slides in my hour that I had their attention. I will be playing this with them again... and would love to have other
Post a Comment
Read more