Pomp and a parade as England celebrates the Queen’s 90th birthday

LONDON (AP) Queen Elizabeth II and her family are marking her official 90th birthday with a parade, a colorful military ceremony and an appearance on the Buckingham Palace balcony.

Prince William rode on a grey charger Wellesley, who he usually rides for the parade, while Prince Charles and Princess Anne rode on George and Elizabeth respectively.

Readers at the service included renowned broadcaster and naturalist David Attenborough and British Prime Minister David Cameron.

If it seems like the British queen celebrated her 90th birthday just a few months ago, that’s because she did.

The traditional Trooping the Color parade will be held Saturday, the queen’s official birthday.

Prince Andrew with daughters, Princess Eugenie and Princess Beatrice. But while the previous programmes were to mark her actual birthday, these programmes are to celebrate her official birthday.

The Queen, wearing a lime green outfit visible from the far points of the crowded mall in front of the palace, travelled by horse-drawn vintage carriage, sometimes waving to the throng.

Over 1400 officers and men on parade, 200 horses, and more than 400 musicians will take part in the event in London.

This year, the queen’s official birthday coincides with her husband’s real birthday.

The events were part of a weekend of celebrations to mark the Queen’s 90th on 21 April.

On the parade ground in their famous scarlet tunics and bearskins were the Coldstream, Grenadier and Scots Guards – while the Irish Guards lined the Queen’s processional route from Buckingham Palace.

Guardsmen line the Mall for the annual Trooping’s Colour ceremony in central London.

Prince George, who is almost three, waved at the planes as they flew by, while one-year-old Princess Charlotte, who was carried by Kate, blocked her ears.

In a ceremony laden with the pageantry that accompanies significant royal events, the monarch was greeted at St Paul’s by a trumpet fanfare while the entrance to the cathedral was flanked by her Bodyguard of the Yeoman of the Guard, veteran soldiers dressed in scarlet uniforms.

On Sunday, the monarch will host a street party for around 10,000 people at the Patron’s Lunch – a celebration of her patronage of more than 600 organisations in the United Kingdom and around the Commonwealth.

The procession will move to Buckingham Palace, where the Queen takes the salute.