Buckingham Palace

===Former ceremonial===

====Court dress====
[[File:President Nixon visiting Buckingham Palace with Britain's royal family - NARA - 194606.tif|thumb|upright=1.2|President [[Richard Nixon|Nixon]] with members of the royal family in the ground-floor Marble Hall]]
Formerly, men not wearing [[military uniform]] wore knee [[breeches]] of 18th-century design. Women's evening dress included trains and [[tiara]]s or feathers in their hair (often both). The dress code governing formal [[Court uniform and dress in the United Kingdom|court uniform and dress]] has progressively relaxed. After the [[First World War]], when [[Mary of Teck|Queen Mary]] wished to follow fashion by raising her skirts a few inches from the ground, she requested a [[lady-in-waiting]] to shorten her own skirt first to gauge the King's reaction. King [[George V]] disapproved, so the Queen kept her hemline unfashionably low.<ref>Healey, p. 233, quoting ''The Memoirs of Mabell, Countess of Airlie'', edited and arranged by Jennifer Ellis, London: Hutchinson, 1962.</ref> Following his accession in 1936, King [[George VI]] and [[Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother|Queen Elizabeth]] allowed the hemline of daytime skirts to rise. Today, there is no official dress code.<ref name="fact"/> Most men invited to Buckingham Palace in the daytime choose to wear [[service uniform]] or [[lounge suit]]s;<ref name="fact"/> a minority wear [[morning coat]]s, and in the evening, depending on the formality of the occasion, [[black tie]] or [[white tie]].<ref name="Seldon1999">{{Cite book |last=Anthony Seldon |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jj2AAAAAIAAJ |title=10 Downing Street: The Illustrated History |publisher=Harper Collins Illustrated |date=1999 |isbn=978-0-0041-4073-5 |page=202}}</ref>

====Court presentation of débutantes====
[[Débutante]]s were aristocratic young ladies making their first entrée into society through a presentation to the monarch at court. These occasions, known as "coming out", took place at the palace from the reign of Edward VII. The débutantes entered—wearing full court dress, with three ostrich feathers in their hair—curtsied, performed a backwards walk and a further curtsey, while manoeuvring a dress train of prescribed length. The ceremony, known as an evening court, corresponded to the "court [[drawing room]]s" of Victoria's reign.<ref>Peacocke, pp. 178–179, 244–247.</ref> After World War II, the ceremony was replaced by less formal afternoon receptions, omitting the requirement of court evening dress.<ref>Peacocke, pp. 264–265.</ref> In 1958, Queen Elizabeth II abolished the presentation parties for débutantes,<ref>{{Cite web |title=Mailbox |url=http://www.royal.gov.uk/output/page5299.asp |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080123231607/http://www.royal.gov.uk/output/page5299.asp |archive-date=23 January 2008 |access-date=23 January 2008 |website=Royal Insight Magazine}}</ref> replacing them with [[Garden at Buckingham Palace#Garden parties|Garden Parties]],{{efn|[[Princess Margaret]] is reputed to have remarked of the débutante presentations: "We had to put a stop to it, every tart in London was getting in."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Blaikie |first=Thomas |title=You look awfully like the Queen |publisher=Harper Collins |date=2002 |isbn=978-0-0071-4874-5 |location=London}}</ref>}} for up to 8,000 invitees in the Garden. They are the largest functions of the year.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Royal Household |title=Garden parties: The guests |url=http://www.royal.gov.uk/RoyalEventsandCeremonies/GardenParties/TheGuests.aspx |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130117060104/http://www.royal.gov.uk/RoyalEventsandCeremonies/GardenParties/TheGuests.aspx |archive-date=17 January 2013 |website=Official Website of the British Monarchy}}</ref>