Here’s What Royals Do With the Flowers They Receive From Fans (Spoiler: It’s Super Sweet!)
When out on a royal engagement or official royal tour, many members of the royal family receive gorgeous bouquets of flowers from fans and well-wishers. And although they typically don’t keep (and sometimes even reject) gifts given to them by the public, Kate Middleton, Meghan Markle, and other members of the royal family typically always keep the flowers.
What do royals do with flowers after a royal engagement? Find out, ahead.
What do royals do with flowers?
When handed a bouquet of flowers by fans, royals typically hold onto them momentarily before handing them off to a member of their staff or entourage. However, unlike gifts — which go through a strict security examination and often get shipped off to storage or donated — the flowers typically end up back in their hands once the event is over.
What do royals do with flowers? According to Town & Country, if they are on a royal tour — aka, staying in a hotel — they often bring the bouquets back to their hotel room and display the flowers in a vase. However, since they receive so many, they often donate the botanicals to hospitals and charities. How sweet is that?!
In addition to the flowers they receive while on royal engagements and tours, royals also might donate floral arrangments from banquets and other events to organizations. At her New York City baby shower, Meghan Markle even had her friends participate in a floral arrangement activity. The blooms designed by her friends — some of which included Serena Williams and Amal Clooney — were then donated to Repeat Roses, a New York City charity that recycles arrangements from events and delivers them to patients in hospitals and care centers.
“Repeat Roses was so honored to help petal-it-forward with a baby shower experience for the Duchess of Sussex and her thoughtful friends by creating a ripple effect of kindness across the community,” Jennifer Grove, the CEO of Repeat Roses told People. The arrangements were given to pediatric cancer patients at Ronald McDonald House Charities of New York as well as patients at Hope Lodge and Unique People Services.
What do royals do with gifts?
Flowers aren’t the only things royal family members collect from fans and well-wishers. In addition to bouquets, they also receive quite a few gifts from the public. However, they can’t keep them as easily as an arrangement of blooms.
According to the royal family gifting protocol, royals must hand over all gifts from unknown members of the public to their security team. Once they pass a security test, the royals might choose to keep the item, gift it to a member of their staff (if under £150), or donate it to a charity. Some of the items — depending on what they are — might also end up in storage or displayed with other items from the royal collection. These items are typically given to royals from world leaders and diplomats.
To avoid hoarding gifts — and paying unnecessary storage fees — the royal family has a designated group of people sift through stored gifts every year and dispose or donate items they do not wish to keep.
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