Fifty meters of table, 160 guests and five days of preparation. On July 8, 2025, Windsor Castle hosted President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte for a state banquet hosted by King Charles III and Queen Camilla. Long before the guests arrived, palace teams had begun transforming St George’s Hall, arranging the crockery, goldwork and flowers on the immense mahogany table. A film published by the Royal Collection Trust now allows us to follow this work, usually absent from official images.
Five days for a single evening
A huge mahogany table.
In St George’s Hall, the great reception room at Windsor Castle, it runs 50 meters, almost the entire length of the room.
The Royal Collection Trust, responsible for the conservation of British royal collections, specifies that preparation requires five full days.
For the dinner of July 8, 2025, offered to President Emmanuel Macron and Brigitte Macron, the institution published a time-lapse video showing the different stages of dressage.
The teams are busy around the table. Cutlery, glasses and decorative pieces are gradually finding their place. As the images progress, the room transforms.
This is a fairly rare opportunity to see the work before the ceremony.
We know the photographs of state banquets: the sovereigns seated, the guests in evening dress, the candlesticks lit. We see less often the hours of preparation that precede.
In Windsor, the length of the table gives an idea of the scale of the operation. An insulated dish can be prepared quickly. One hundred and sixty places lined up on a single table require much greater organization.
It is necessary to spare the spaces intended for floral arrangements, candelabras and the various rooms of the royal service. The regularity of the training must be maintained from one end of the room to the other.
Five days may seem like a long time to prepare a dinner. Looking at the images, we understand better how they are used.
The silversmiths, the porcelain and the two thousand pieces
In Windsor, dressage involves the teams responsible for silverware and porcelain, the Silver and China Pantries.
The Royal Collection Trust has preserved particularly interesting documentation of preparations for a banquet in March 2008.
At that time, more than 2,000 pieces of cutlery were used at a state banquet. Each place had to be prepared with great precision.
For a guest, teams set out two knives and two forks, with a dessert spoon and fork placed on top.
On the left were a small china plate, a silver butter knife, and a small glass container for butter.
Another detail: salt shaker, mustard pot and pepper pot were shared between two guests.
The large plates, on the other hand, were not set up in advance. They were kept warm to be brought with the first service.
This organization documented in 2008 does not allow all the cutlery for the July 2025 banquet to be described identically. It nevertheless shows the care taken in the presentation and the links between the room and the kitchens.
A plate intended for a hot dish does not necessarily have its place on the table several hours before the meal.
The work of the financier here joins that of the service staff.
In Windsor, as in any house with antique collections, preparing a table requires knowing the objects and their destination.
Some are used directly by guests. Others participate in the decoration, in the center of the table. All must be handled with appropriate precautions.
The Grand Service, still at the table two centuries later
Among the flowers and glasses, the pieces of goldwork immediately catch the eye.
They belong in particular to the Grand Service, a set originally commissioned by the future George IV, then Prince of Wales.
Its constitution began at the beginning of the 19th century. The goldsmiths Rundell, Bridge & Rundell delivered their first pieces to Carlton House in 1811.
The service is then enriched for several years.
It now has more than 4,000 pieces, according to the Royal Collection Trust.
There you will find dishes, salt shakers, coolers, dessert displays, candelabras and a number of accessories intended for the table or buffet.
The inventory of the collection mentions in particular 107 candelabras and 58 displays and centerpieces.
This is indeed about historical collections, and not the number of pieces brought out for the French president’s dinner in 2025.
The Grand Service has another particularity: its objects were created in different styles, then brought together within the same set of gilded silver.
This gilding contributes to their visual unity.
Two centuries after its first orders, the service continues to be used at state banquets at Windsor and Buckingham Palace.
These objects have crossed the reigns. However, they remain intended for use.
Roses, sweet peas and gilded silver
For the banquet offered to Emmanuel Macron, the floral arrangements were made from seasonal flowers.
Descriptions communicated to the press evoke roses, sweet peas, aromatic herbs and lavender.
The shades chosen ranged from pale pink to mauve, with an important place given to white.
Flowers came from the gardens of Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle, as well as Savill Garden in Windsor Great Park.
They were arranged in gilded silver coins belonging to the Grand Service.
This is an interesting detail.
At Windsor, flowers aren’t just placed in the middle of the table. They take place in historical containers which themselves participate in the composition.
Bouquets change with the seasons and events. The pieces of goldsmith’s work cross generations.
In the photographs taken before the banquet, we see the teams making the final adjustments to the compositions.
The colors remain soft, despite the brilliance of the candelabra and the gilded silver.
The set combines freshly cut flowers with objects, some of which were made more than two centuries ago.
A French table in the history of Windsor
The dinner on July 8, 2025 was part of a three-day state visit, the first to the United Kingdom by a President of the French Republic since 2008.
King Charles III and Queen Camilla received their guests in St George’s Hall, a hall whose history is closely linked to the great receptions of the British monarchy.
The presence of the French president also recalled an old episode.
In October 1844, Queen Victoria welcomed Louis-Philippe, King of the French, to Windsor.
A watercolor by Joseph Nash, held in the Royal Collection, shows St George’s Hall during this visit.
The artist represents the guests and the immense structures intended to present the royal goldwork.
At the back of the room, the gilded silver coins stand out against a crimson velvet decor.
The Grand Service was already present, well before the reign of Charles III.
In this watercolor by Joseph Nash, the Grand Service of George IV is displayed on an imposing ceremonial sideboard at the back of St George’s Hall.
At the 2025 banquet, Charles III himself recalled Louis-Philippe’s visit in his speech, delivered partly in French.
Almost two centuries later, the room once again welcomed a French head of state.
Diplomatic customs and circumstances had naturally changed. Some objects were still there.
The watercolor from 1844 thus sheds valuable light on the history of the royal table.
We discover a much more theatrical presentation of goldsmithing, with these large buffets set up to impress the guests.
Today, the collections continue to participate in the decor, but their arrangement is in keeping with the contemporary uses of banquets.
Until the last moments
On the evening of July 8, the guests took their places around the long table.
King Charles III and President Emmanuel Macron were seated in the center, in keeping with the arrangement of Windsor state banquets.
The candlesticks, flowers and gilded silver services were in place.
In the kitchens, French chef Raymond Blanc collaborated with the palace teams to design the starter and dessert for the dinner, in the spirit of the Entente Cordiale.
The meal could begin.
The official photographs show the result. The guests are seated, the speeches begin and the table appears perfectly orderly.
The film published by the Royal Collection Trust takes us back in time, before this first image of the banquet.
We find the teams at work, the objects before they are put in place, the movements around this long, still empty table.
There remains something touching in these images.
The guests will have spent an evening around this table. The teams had started their work several days earlier.
When the doors of St George’s Hall finally open, the final adjustments are complete.
The guests discover the flowers, the candelabras and the shine of the silverware.
The hands that prepared all this are already no longer in the frame.
Sources and credits
Documentary sources
Royal Collection Trust
. Official documentation on Windsor banquets: 50 meter table, capacity for 160 guests and five days of preparation. * Preparations for a State Banquet at Windsor Castle, March 2008
. Description of dressage uses, the work of silversmiths and pieces of cutlery. * The Grand Service
. History of goldsmithing commissioned by George IV, composition and use of the collections. * Windsor Castle: St George’s Hall, 11 October 1844
. Watercolor by Joseph Nash, RCIN 919791.
British Royal House
. Official report of the state visit of July 8, 2025. * The King’s speech at the French State Banquet
. Speech of King Charles III, with its reference to the history of Franco-British relations.
Press
, July 8 and 9, 2025. Description of the floral decorations, the menu and the collaboration with Raymond Blanc. * The Independent, State banquet in spirit of Entente Cordiale
, July 8, 2025. Details on the preparations and the collections used.
Photo credits
Image from one: July 2025 banquet preparations, staff member adjusting decorations. © Getty Images. Exact photographer to be confirmed on license form.
Photo 1: Final dressage adjustments, Windsor Castle, July 8, 2025. © PA Media.
Photo 2: Grand Service dessert plate and cutlery. © Royal Collection Trust / Royal Collection Enterprises Limited. Documentation: State Banquets at Buckingham Palace.
Photo 3: Joseph Nash, Windsor Castle: St George’s Hall, 11 October 1844, watercolor, 1844, RCIN 919791. © Royal Collection Trust / Royal Collection Enterprises Limited.
Photo 4: State Banquet on July 8, 2025 in Windsor, overview of St George’s Hall. © Getty Images.
Video: Royal Collection Trust, Windsor Castle State Banquet | Watch a timelapse of the table being prepared in St George’s Hall, July 2025. © Royal Collection Enterprises Limited. Watch on Vimeo.
