A garden party for the public at the governor’s residence and a parade filled with pomp and ceremony will be held in Cayman on Monday, 19 June, to mark the first official birthday of King Charles III.
Celebrations on Monday, which is a public holiday in Cayman, will begin at Government House on West Bay Road with a parade by the uniformed service and youth organisations.
The ceremony will start at 9am. Organisers are requesting members of the public to be seated no later than 8:30am.
Governor Jane Owen will receive the first Royal Salute and conduct the official inspection of the parade, followed by the presentation of honours and awards to this year’s nine honourees.
Later in the day, the governor, who took up her new post in Cayman in April this year, will host her first afternoon garden party, which will be open to the public, on the lawn of her residence, starting at 4pm.
She has extended a special invitation to all seniors across the Cayman Islands to attend as her special guests, according to a statement issued by government.
The dress code for the occasion is “garden party attire or semi-formal day dress, with hats being optional”. Organisers say the dress code will be strictly enforced and anyone wearing shorts, tank tops, flip flops and similar forms of casual wear will not be permitted.
King Charles’s actual birthday is on 14 Nov. Like his late mother, Queen Elizabeth II, and a number of earlier monarchs, he also has an official birthday that is held in June.
This is done for practical reasons by kings and queens whose birthdays fall during winter months, as since 1748, under King George II, monarchs’ birthdays have been celebrated by the ‘Trooping the Colour’ military parade, and it makes more sense to hold such an event in the summer.
Celebrations for King Charles’s birthday in the UK will take place on Saturday, 17 June, when more than 1,400 parading soldiers, 200 horses and 400 musicians will take part in Trooping the Colour in London.
The birthday parade in Cayman will be live streamed on CIGTV and the Cayman Islands government YouTube channel, and the garden party will be featured on CIGTV.
Road closures are expected on the day, though no details have yet been released. This story will be updated with that information once it becomes available.
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