Top Tips on How to Create the Very Best Royal Wedding Day Celebration – Mary Kate’s Afternoon Tea Idea’s for a Splendid British Tea time Treat

Royal Wedding Afternoon Tea Party Celebration fit for a Queen!

It is official – Tea with Mary Kate is now very excited about the marriage of Prince William to Catherine Middleton. Quite honestly, how can anyone not be?!

To create the very best Wedding Day Party, Tea with Mary Kate has sought out a few quintessionally British favourite essentials – things that will guarantee any event is transported into a rather splendid Royal Wedding Celebration:

Union Jack Bunting – A sight to behold on Regent Street

There is nothing like bunting to signal party. Already in Regent Street, the Union Jack bunting is fluttering resplendent in the breeze as the spring blossom drifts like confetti from trees, all in splendid anticipation of the Royal Wedding. Not that the weather will need to be perfect – the only way that the British will be deterred from being outdoors on such an occasion will be a force 10 gale!

Royal wedding Bunting Regent Street - Mirror Newspaper

Tea and Royal Wedding Inspired Biscuits

Biscuiteers ask a very simple question – why send flowers when you can send biscuits instead? To celebrate the wedding of the decade, rather marvelously, they have created a limited-edition tin fit for a future king. It’s a veritable fanfare of regal-inspired treats: bejewelled crowns (his and hers), the royal glass coach, Union Flags, exquisite sparkly heels, a beautiful designer wedding dress, the world famous engagement ring and even a fabulous three tiered commemorative wedding cake!

Well, I could not agree more, with this gorgeous selection of Royal Wedding inspired treats, all that is needed is a rather nice cup of tea.

Biscuiteers Royal wedding biscuits - A real tea time treat

A Gorgeous Cup of Tea in a Vintage Tea Cup

With Prince William’s current role in the RAF, I am transported back to the recent London Blitz remembrance, a time of bravery and nostalgia. Henrietta Lovells Royal air force tea is just the right tea for the occasion. It is a gorgeous, distinctive, uniquely British blend of Indian Darjeeling and Malawi tea with an old fashioned full bodied leaf taste that is just perfect for creating a flavour to remember the Royal Wedding day celebrations.

Even better, tea from these 2 boutique estates is created using sustainable practices, and is hand crafted and not industrially processed. The tea even smells distinctively old fashioned in a wonderfully nostalgic way that instantly transported me back to my grandmother’s kitchen. I could not resist the Rare Tea company’s striking packaging with the distinctive RAF logo.

Henrietta Lovell's Royal Airforce tea - Perfect for Royal Wedding Afternoon tea celebrations

Royal Wedding Afternoon Tea – Picnic in the Park

As Afternoon Tea is such a wonderfully British treat, Tea with Mary Kate’s idea’s to inspire a Royal Wedding Afternoon Tea is just the perfect way to celebrate. I have created an afternoon tea around the old fashioned custom of ”something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue”, a splendid tradition to bring together the brides past and her future.

Burleigh china for Prince William & Kate Middleton's Royal Wedding Afternoon Tea party

Emma Bridgewater butter dishes and tea pots emblazoned with the union Jack are just the perfect crockery for a Royal Wedding day Tea. Better still though, I adore the specially commissioned William and Kate Royal Wedding tea pot with images of Westminster Abbey, just perfect for brewing a lovely cup of tea.

Tea time treat for William & Kate - Emma Bridgewater Royal Wedding Tea Pot

Create a Traditional Royal Wedding Picnic

Hampers filled to bursting with treats. Some of my favorites include trifles in vintage blue, white & gold cups with custard, strawberries and fresh cream, freshly baked scones, with homemade plum jam.

Scones fit for a Queen! Royal Tea time treat to celebrate Kate & Williams Wedding Day

What are your favourite things for how will you be celebrating the Royal Wedding Day?

There is an intrinsic ceremony to taking time for tea, and tea is such a quintessentially British ceremony, it is at the very heart of how to create the very best Royal Wedding day celebration. Tea creates such a nurturing, intimate environment, and we all need to belong, to connect, to be interested in each other. Afternoon Tea feels like a real treat, and evokes another era when interactions were precious. My wish for this post it that it reminds us that this is still so. Tea with Mary Kate wishes you a wonderful Royal Wedding Day however you celebrate it.

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A Remembrance Tea

“On the 11th month, on the 11th day, at the 11th hour, we will remember”

The first world War is the origin of remembrance day. On the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month in 1918 the guns of Europe fell silent. After four years of bitter fighting, the Great War was finally over. The Armistice was signed at 5am in a railway carriage in the Forest of Compiegne, France on November 11, 1918. Six hours later, at 11am, the war ended.

When in May 1919, an Australian journalist proposed a respectful silence, it was brought to the attention of King George V who issued a proclamation in November which called for a two minute silence. Originally called Armistice Day, it commemorated the end of hostilities the previous year.

“All locomotion should cease, so that, in perfect stillness, the thoughts of everyone may be concentrated on reverent remembrance of the glorious dead.”

After the end of the Second World War in 1945 Armistice Day became Remembrance Day to include all those who had fallen in the two World Wars and other conflicts. To this day, it provides an opportunity to remember those who have died.

Cenotaph – Greek for empty tomb – 1920 King George V

On the Sunday nearest to 11 November at 11am each year, a Remembrance Service is held at the Cenotaph

It commemorates British and Commonwealth servicemen and women who died in the two World Wars and later conflicts who gave their lives defending others. The service has changed little since it was first introduced in 1921,with the march of past of war veterans the most poignant gesture of respect for their fallen comrades.

Remembrance Day Tea

Remembrance Day is a time of great reflection, and is particularly poignant with the current conflicts. Full of emotion,  and very few words, there is a comfort in being together. At its heart, a remembrance Tea is an opportunity to take time together in spending time with those you love, and who absolutely love you back.

The tea needs to be simple, comforting, with a vintage touch to echo the past. Although simple, it is still a treat, the gift is in provision of some cheerfulness on a day of remembrance. It can be inexpensive but charming, using seasonal ingredients and the hedgerow provide the imagination and the inspiration. Home baked Ham and trout, with plates of bread and butter are savoury treats, with something sweet from hedgerow jams and rose hip jelly. Seasonal apple and blackberry pie, with cup of tea cake for sweet treats, and of course, lashing of freshly brewed tea.

Emma Bridgewater butter dishes and tea pots emblazoned with the union Jack are just the perfect crockery for a Remembrance day Tea.

The first Poppy Day was held on November 11, 1921, and the factory was founded by Major George Howson MC to offer work to some of the 100,000 unemployed disabled former servicemen. 

The poppy has a long association with Remembrance Day. Growing in the disturbed earth of the battle fields, it came to represent the immeasurable sacrifice and quickly became a lasting memorial to those who died in World War One and later conflicts. It was adopted by The Royal British Legion as the symbol for their Poppy Appeal, in aid of those serving in the British Armed Forces, after its formation in 1921.

Do take time to remember those that gave, and continue to give so much.

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