With a great big title, comes great responsibility, and the Daffodil Festival doesn’t take the decision of choosing its reigning monarchs lightly. As we get ready to select our 2023 Daffodil Festival Queen, here’s a backstage look at the processes behind Coronation!
Selection season, Princess Practices, Promenade, and more, have all led to where we are today: but a few hours away from crowning a new reigning monarch for the Daffodil Festival season. While it feels like just a few short months have passed since we first met each of the members of our 2023 Royal Court, when their high schools selected them in October and November, they have been jam-packed with a rigorous schedule of preparation and personal development, to lead each toward their official role as Daffodil Festival Princesses, and Ambassadors of Pierce County.
Now equipped with the knowledge, skill, and, yes, attire, of a true Princess, each of these incredible young ladies have already begun making a mark on their greater communities and Pierce County itself. Before the Royal Court can really get their reign underway – with numerous Court events and appearances, not to mention a great big Grand Floral Parade – there’s only one thing left to do: crown the 2023 Daffodil Festival Queen!
Selected from within their ranks, the Daffodil Festival Queen serves as a figurehead and representative for the Royal Court for the remainder of the festival season. While the position certainly comes with its perks (a fancy white dress, the best seat on the Queen’s Float, and an additional $5,000 scholarship from the Washington State Fair Foundation, just to name a few) it also carries a significant amount of weight and expectation: whereas the Royal Court are already sacrificing precious hours of their senior year of high school, dedicated to community service and ambassadorship, the Queen does so exponentially. With a great big tiara, comes great responsibility!
Being given the title of Queen isn’t just a lofty achievement for these ambitious and talented high schoolers, but a weighty commitment. Needless to say, everyone involved takes their job very seriously, to make sure that the young woman selected for this role is able to represent herself, her community, her County, and of course, her Festival, to the best of her individual ability.
It takes a village to raise a child, and it takes a Festival to make a Queen.
Major Players: Names to Know
Daffodil Festival Director of Royalty: Mabel Thompson. You may have seen her highlighted on the blog before – most recently when discussing the choices behind this year’s iconic yellow dresses – because she’s the one in charge of preparing our Royal Court before their sneakered foot ever hits a stage! She serves as the primary point of contact for all Princess-related decisions, and is the one in charge of leading Princess programming all Winter long. You know how daffodils are dormant all Fall, before starting to push past that dirt in the Springtime? Think of Mabel as their little-underground coach, cheering them on, and teaching them how best to bloom. Together with her Royalty Committee – including Royalty Educator Kelty Pierce, and Daffodilians like Karah Ritter and Lindsey Clark – Mabel helps make our Royalty shine.
Daffodil Festival 2023 President: Madison Riddle. President Madison’s responsibilities for Coronation include taking the stage for a speech of her own… after all, she’s the one who chose the theme for this year! Not only does she help kick off the event by talking about why she decided “90 Years Around the Sound” was the appropriate choice for the 2023 Festival season, but she also is on deck for crowning her new Queen. Says Riddle, “I love Coronation! It’s a chance for each young lady to shine and showcase their hard work. I’m so proud of each of these ladies!”
Co-Directors of Chaperones: Carrie Swanlund and Lisa Gimmestad. The Chaperones are responsible for the safe transportation and shepherding of Princesses to various events throughout the course of the Festival season. In the event that a Princess can’t secure a ride anywhere necessary to Royal activities, Chaperones help coordinate. This way, the burden of transportation is squarely on the Festival; there is no hurdle for Princess participation when it comes to paying for gas, or finding a ride!
Daffodil Festival Director of Events: Marin Sasaki-Boyce. As Director of Events, she handles the logistics of planning Promenade, Coronation, Princess Tea, and even assisting with Selections in the Fall. Because her job is so wide-spanning, she also manages a team of Committee members to handle the nitty-gritty details of things like day-of management, decorations, venue coordination, and more.
Daffodil Festival President-Elect: Marissa Modestowicz. While her job will take on a whole new range of duties next year, Modestowicz is no stranger to putting in the hard work at Daffodil events: not only did she assist coordinating the judges for Selections, but she’s also managing the judging panel for Coronation, put together this year’s order of events and edit the script for making sure it all flows smoothly.
Our 2023 Panel of Judges: a passionate group of community leaders and local personalities, who are familiar with the legacy of the Daffodil Festival in Pierce County, and the requirements for becoming Queen. They’re invested in the future of the Royal Court, and know that choosing a Queen is just one more step in the Daffodil journey for this incredible group of young women.
It might be easy to just write off Coronation as being a “one night only” kind of decision, but these major players have been making plans and taking action for months, in order to make sure this event goes off without a hitch.
But I know what you’re thinking: Okay, so then what has been going on?
The Events Before the Event: The Pre-Coronation Calendar
We already know about Selection Season, Princess Practices, Princess Promenade, and more (but if you don’t, make sure to go back in the blog to learn all about them, so you’re proceeding with the most comprehensive intel)!
And yet, there’s a lot more where that came from when it comes to preparing for one of the biggest nights on the Festival calendar.
Informal Judging takes place in the week proceeding Coronation, and is an easy, low-stakes way for the judges to get to know the Royal Court before any of the more stressful events of the week. Typically taking place at a local restaurant, Princesses sit in groups at tables, and the judges rotate throughout the room, in order to have the chance to meet the 24 Princesses in a more relaxed setting. This event is not based on strict guidelines, and instead, is more of a fun getting-to-know you activity.
Formal Judging takes place the day before Coronation, and is more of a sit-down conversation that resembles a job interview panel. After all, the role of Queen is pretty similar to that of an actual job, with responsibilities and duties that the selected Princess will be expected to perform, so it makes sense that the process for her selection would look similar.
Pre-Coronation Rehearsals take place the day-of, where Princesses walk through practices for how to enter and exit the stage, how to adjust their microphone, how to find their light, and more. They run through their song-and-dance one last time, then head back stage to prepare, get their hair and makeup ready, and run through their speeches before the audience arrives.
Soon enough, it’s time to hit the stage!
The Big Night: Backstage at Coronation
The lights in the auditorium are set, the doors are open, and soon enough, family, friends, Festival supporters, and even the folks at home (thanks to today’s livestreaming capabilities) all have eyes on the spotlighted stage, ready to see some Princesses in action!
Each Princess takes the stage, where their official bio is read. This bio is the same one that was read at Promenade, when each young woman was introduced as an official Princess for the first time. Unlike that event, though, this stage is a little bigger and brighter this time, and our Princesses have a task at hand: to let the audience know what “90 Years Around the Sound” means to them!
After introductions have been made, it’s time for a one-minute speech, oriented around the Festival’s theme. Depending on the Princess, it’s most likely the same speech they gave when they were selected by their high schools, back in October and November. Even though everyone’s working from the same prompt, responses vary widely, and each Princess has something unique and interesting to say.
After their speech is completed, they are then tasked with answering an impromptu question. While these change every single year, each Princess is given the same one the night of the event, to give everyone an even playing field. However, like with speeches, the answers these young women give can be very different!
After all 24 Princesses have gone through their speeches and impromptus, they take the stage once more for the performance of their song and dance, a piece of entertainment they prepare every year, to be used while traveling to events as a Court, like for various organization visits and Princess Tea. After all that stressful stage time, it’s a fun way to ease tension and let loose a little bit before the big announcements.
But Queen isn’t the only title being awarded tonight: the Miss Congeniality title is bestowed annually by the Tacoma Yacht Club, with an additional scholarship! This title is chosen specifically by the Royal Court from within their own ranks, for a particular member who has helped make their Princess experience a positive one.
Then, the big moment arrives! We announce the new Queen, and she is quickly shuffled into a historic cape and ceremonial crown. We break out the sword for official “tapping” by the President, and she is presented to the audience with her snazzy new title. We adjourn to the lobby for photos, and the Princesses gather up the cards and flowers that they’ve been given by their adoring public.
It’s a lot of hard work, but it’s more than worth it to continue to provide for the Festival’s enduring legacy in Pierce County. With the new Queen, we officially have a full Court, reading to lead the annual Daffodil Grand Floral Parade, to traveling throughout the Festival season and beyond.
The 2023 Daffodil Festival Queen’s Coronation is taking place tonight, Saturday, March 4th, at Mt. Tahoma High School in Tacoma. Now that you have all of the details on what goes on behind the scenes, I can’t imagine you’d want to miss it! You can easily join in on the action from home by watching via the livestream, which you can access on the Daffodil Festival Facebook page.
While you’re there, make sure to check out any additional information you might need about upcoming Princess events and appearances, like the first-ever Daffodil Festival Auction, hosted by the Tacoma Yacht Club next Saturday, March 11th, and the Daffodil Festival Grand Floral Parade, which will be rolling through the four Pierce County cities of Tacoma, Puyallup, Sumner, and Orting this upcoming Saturday, April 1st. All of the most up-to-date information can be found on our social media, so make sure to follow us on Facebook and Instagram!
Looking for more? Click on the ‘Events’ pages on our website for access to additional details, ticket purchasing, and more. Tickets for events like the upcoming Princess Tea – at the picturesque Laurel Creek Manor in Sumner, on May 7th – will be made available soon, follow along and subscribe to our newsletter for upcoming details!