To celebrate the birthday of Queen Elizabeth II, over 800 guests gathered at the residence of HRA Greg Dorey in Budapest on 17th of June. A light and friendly tone was immediately established due to the warm greeting and approachable style of the host and his wife, and thanks to the music of the Wealden Wind Quintet playing mainly English folk music arrangements. It was the second time they performed the British and Hungarian national anthems in Budapest.The evening was a fantastic occasion to raise glasses to the Queen and enjoy a proper summer evening party outdoors. Also the British Embassy took the occasion to highlight important environment protection work its involved with. The host of the event was as pleased to share his home environment with guests, and to share his likable opinions,
"We are very lucky to live in such a beautiful Residence and garden in Budapest and we try to make as much use of it as possible to promote British aims and values. Our biggest event of the year is the Queen's Birthday Party, which is held in mid-June. This is an opportunity to thank our friends and contacts in Hungary for all they do for us and to invite others with whom we would like to build a relationship.
This year we were blessed with excellent weather and well over 800 guests enjoyed themselves with us. We tried to make it as green an event as possible - for example, with locally-sourced food and with advice from the Gödöllö University Climate Office to our guests on how to be green. They all left with a bag of compost and some seeds!"
The food and wine were a treat, clearly an effort had been made to offer bites of traditional English food, which was well received by all. The BBQ style traditional British sausages from David Wilkinson proved their popularity for the third year. Corporate sponsors included Vodafone and Unilever, plus Tesco who sponsored this event for the 7th time.
Among the many guests, of various nationalities, were officials from the Hungarian Ministry of Defence including LTC István Tárnok, senior desk officer, who commented, "all the officials greatly enjoyed themselves at the party, all of whom were representing the Ministry of Defence and received invites directly from the Embassy."
The beautiful garden was filled with well-wishers until late in the evening, regular QBP attendee Adrian Ellis, general manager of the Corinthia Grand Hotel Royal in Budapest, summed up the event as follows,
"It was good to see that finally we had good weather for the Queen’s Birthday celebrations at the Ambassador’s Residence. Having endured a downpour last year with everyone returning home with muddy shoes it was a good feeling to return home this year having enjoyed an excellent evening of good company, good food and wine all served in the elegant surroundings of the gardens of the Ambassador’s Residence. A night to remember."
Follow this link to see his official speech at the event, which is also partly in Hungarian.
By Anna Koczor for XpatLoop.com
Click here to see a snapshot photo gallery of the event
26.06.2009