Thursday, June 23, 2016

Official Ceremony Marks National Day

All photos: Claude Piscitelli / Luxemburger Wort / Wort.lu
It's the Luxarazzi day of the year! Luxembourg's Nationalfeierdag is upon us - and with it lots of appearances by the Grand Ducal Family. For visits to Troisvierges and Esch, check here; for the torchlight procession, here. Today's celebrations kicked off with the (new-ish) official ceremony attended by Grand Duke Henri and Grand Duchess Maria Teresa, Hereditary Grand Duke Guillaume and Hereditary Grand Duchess Stéphanie, Prince Félix and Princess Claire, Prince Louis and Princess Tessy, Princess Alexandra as well as Prince Sébastien.
This year, the secular ceremony took place at the Salle de concerts Grande-Duchesse Joséphine-Charlotte, also known as the Philharmonie Luxembourg. After the Grand Ducal Family including the Grand Duke arrived to the strains of the Wilhelmus, they made their way into the building where they joined members of the government and parliament, members of the town council of Luxembourg, the members of the Council of State, members of the judiciary, the heads of administration and the diplomatic corps for the official ceremony featuring speeches by Prime Minister Xavier Bettel, the President of the Chamber of Deputies Mars di Bartolomeo as well as the Grand Duke himself, in which he made it quite clear that he would vote "Remain" in today's British referendum. They also awarded orders and such to deserving citizens.
 
Fasion-wise it was a day of repeats: Grand Duchess Maria Teresa repeated a much-worn Armani suit, Princess Tessy repeated her dress from the wedding of Archduchess Marie-Christine in 2008, and Princess Alexandra reached even further back repeating a dress she also wore to her parents silver wedding anniversary back in 2006 - thus rivalling their aunt Archduchess Marie-Astrid, our queen of recycling. And yes, I needed less than three seconds to identify where I had seen those dresses before. So I guess it's time to wrap it up!

First pictures of the ceremony at Wort. Like we did in previous years, we will have a seperate post with maaaany picture links once everything is over.

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