Launched with just a handful of friends by François Pasquier over 27 years ago, Paris’ Dîner en Blanc now assembles nearly 15,000 people each year. The French capital’s most prestigious sites have played host to it: the Pont des Arts, the Eiffel Tower site, Place Vendôme, the Château de Versailles, the Esplanade de Notre-Dame, the Esplanade des Invalides, the periphery of the Place de l’Étoile, the Champs-Élysées, Place de la Concorde, Le Louvre Pyramid, Trocadéro Esplanade and this year:  The Palais Royal Garden!

The Paris police tend to tolerate this ‘wild’ gathering, if not perhaps even wishing they could join in!

The time has come and we are so excited to finally share the news with you. Dîner en Blanc returns this summer to Vancouver, Thursday, August 18th to celebrate our 5th Anniversary.

Thousands of people, dressed all in white, and conducting themselves with the greatest decorum, elegance, and etiquette, all meet for a mass “chic picnic” in a public space.

Over the course of an evening, the diners enhance the function and value of their city’s public space by participating in the unexpected.
Beyond the spectacle and refined elegance of the dinner itself, guests are brought together from diverse backgrounds by a love of beauty and good taste.
Le Dîner en Blanc recalls the elegance and glamour of court society, and diners engage one another knowing they are taking part in a truly magical event.
There are no disruptions: no car traffic, no pedestrian traffic, except for the occasional amazed and astonished looks from passersby at the scene unfolding before them. And we, as they, wonder whether it’s all not a dream…