Duchess Sarah - Birthday Reply (2016)

I wrote to Sarah, Duchess of York last month to wish her a birthday, and received this in reply yesterday. The envelope was quite a tease because they sent the letter in a large, cardboard backed envelope marked "Please do not bend." They usually use that kind of envelope to send an auto-penned photo in. But sadly, no photo this time.

The letter is similar to what we usually see with Sarah. "Felicitations" - means good wishes, usually used to congratulate someone.



It appears whoever sent the letter was in a bit of a rush. They forgot to sign the letter. They also misspelt my name at the bottom of the letter, and again on the envelope.

The quote at the bottom of the page is something unique to Sarah. It is nice to see her change up the quote at the bottom of the letter. The last two years, she used a quote from Pope Pius XII.

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November 2016 Q&A

As always, post your Royal Questions & I will get to them as soon as possible. 

Question 1: Will Kate ever receive the Royal Order from The Queen?

Answer:  Yes, I think Catherine will definitely get one from the Queen. The real question is when. The Queen will give Catherine the order when the time is right,  but I can't imagine it will be long now. Of course we won't know Catherine has received it till we see her wearing it at a State Banquet. 

Question 2: Do you already know to whom you will send Christmas letters/cards in this year? Will you send cards or letters? I'm so excited for this season. And you? 

Answer:  You can send either a letter or a card, both are fine. I like to send letters cause it gives me more room to say things. I usually spend quite a bit of time on each letter. 

I'm also very excited, Christmas is one of my favorite times of the year. And love sending my letters, and getting all the wonderful replies thought January and February. I haven't started writing yet. But I plan to hopefully this week. 

I haven't quite made my Christmas list. I have a vague idea, but it just depends on how many I get too. I usually start with the one's I'm most excited to write to, and trickle down to  the "I don't think they are even going to reply, so why bother"? 

My plan is to write to all the current European Monarchs. With some royal families I will write to other members of the royal family. For example with UK, I'm planning on writing to the Wales, Cambridges, Harry, Yorks, etc. How far I go down that list just depends on how busy I am. 

Question 3: You say that its better to send letter with Christmas greetings by 5th of December. But I am worried what if I send them my letter and they still would not be prepared and instead of getting a beautiful picture reply, I will receive a typed letter. What is your opinion on that? Do you think that I can send a letter on for example 30th of November and I will still get a Christmas reply?

Answer: It's not too early to write to the Cambridges for Christmas, you could have written earlier than this. It takes a longer over the holidays for your letter to arrive at their office. Then letters always sit around for a while, while they wait to be open, which will also take longer over the holidays. So there is chance they won't even get to it till their staff is back from their holiday break, meaning you won't get a reply till January. 

Even if they get to your letter in early December before they have made their photo reply yet, they will put it in a pile until they are ready. 

Too early would be your letter arrives in early/mid November, before they even thought about Christmas, or it arrived in February when they thought they were all done with Christmas replies and they are all out of their photo replies. 

For the most party, they only send out letters when they feel like they need to send a more personal response, or they don't have a reply for that occasion. They get so much mail over the holidays they don't have the time to write letters to each person who wrote a little early or a little late, so don't worry. 

Question 4: On which day and month (at the beginning  middle, end etc.) do you usually start sending Christmas letters to royals?

Answer: It changes from year to year, just depending on how busy/excited I am. I usually start about middle of November, and finish early December. 

But how early you start just depends on where you are sending your letter from, and whether it's economy, standard, first class, propriety, etc. mail. The goal is to try to get our letter to arrives in December, hopefully before Christmas. And for some places that means sending our letter out really early, like October, and for others they can send their letter out a week before Christmas and it will arrive in time. 

For more on specifics you will want to check with your countries postal service. We have a list of them here.  

Question 5: Do you think that Princess Sofia will respond to a letter on the occasion on her birthday? Cause I know that they usually reply, but I am really worried cause I send 2 letters to Sweden (to Silvia and Vic ) but I never got a reply.

Answer: The Swedish Royals actually very rarely reply. So I'm not surprised you didn't get a reply from Silvia and Victoria. Sadly I don't think you will get a reply from Sofia either. But the Swedish Royals can be a bit unpredictable when it comes to replies, so who knows. 

Question 6: When writing a letter to the Cambridges for Christmas, how should you start the letter? Do you address them all one by one, or is there an acceptable collective name we can address them as? 

Answer: You can address them however you would like (as long as it's respectful). I usually write to William and Catherine, and say in the letter that I'm sending my wishes to their family.  I usually put Duke & Duchess of Cambridge on the envelope and then start with Dear Your Royal Highnesses,. 

But you can do what ever you like William & Kate/Catherine, Prince William and Princess Kate, The Cambridges, William, Catherine, George & Charlotte, Earl and Countess of Strathearn, etc. 

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