Bazaar Girls, Berkley Square & the Prettiest Belle Epoque

Wow! What a whirlwind week… As soon as the photos landed in my inbox I couldn’t wait to start writing!

Finest Florals? It seems like a fairly obvious dress code for May, but boy were we lucky. Monday’s downpour felt like the final showdown between Winter and Spring, so the idea of eighteen women throwing on pretty summer dresses to compliment bouncy blow-drys the following day seemed like wishful thinking. But then Tuesday came, the sun beamed down onto Berkeley Square, we threw open the doors of the Flower Room and counted every lucky star we had.

When Chantal, Brand Manager for Perrier-Jouët Champagne, and I sat down two months ago we set our hearts on a date in Spring, a perfect Spring Lunch to create a buzz around the launch of Bee Bazaar in partnership with Perrier-Jouët. Perrier-Jouët are one of the first champagne brands to actively connect with the millennial market and we felt the two boutique brands intertwine well together – the Bee together with the beautiful anemones that adorn the Perrier Jouët Belle Epoque bottles – it has Spring written all over it. The venue? Well it had to be The Flower Room at Annabel’s. It’s beautiful, buzzy and, well… floral! We knew right from the get go we wanted women only, 2018 has undoubtedly been a breakthrough year for women – we wanted a strong female focus, connecting women, collaborating and celebrating every woman’s achievements in that room.

Talking of collaboration, without hesitation we agreed we wanted to involve Sabrina Percy and her artistic flair for the glossy place cards. Something different to stand out from the other illustrations we had seen. The result? The place cards were a perfect replica of the beautifully shaped Belle Epoque bottle, each one hand-painted alternating between the classic green and the rose gold bottle. They perfectly matched the Perrier Jouët hand-painted anemone Champagne glasses on the table (a pair also thrown in with the gift bag), and along with the flowers all over the walls and covering every surface of the table – the result was floral heaven.

Another collaboration we were lucky to have was with Hermione Underwood who waved her magic wand and quicker than the speed of light arrive eighteen beautiful notebooks from The Daily Edited in New York – engraved into each one were every guest’s initials along with a bumble bee on the back. The perfect present for the Bazaar Girl who needs to keep track of all upcoming events in London. I honestly still don’t know how she did it.

So with every detail seamlessly taken care of, all that was left were the arrival of the guests. Dave Bennet, who we were lucky enough to have as our photographer, arrived earlier in the day to snap away at the beautiful table setting, the place cards, the gift bags and not before long, our guests. Perhaps due to my frantic message sent to everyone in two minutes flat the night before “Looking forward to see you all at 12pm tomorrow in your Finest Florals” (yes I put these bits in bold) one after another each girl walked in looking, dare I say it? Blooming’ fab. Dave snapped away and so the Belle Epoque flowed.

In true Annabel’s style, they went above and beyond and we couldn’t have been looked after better. Candice, who manages all the Private Dining events, could not have been more helpful and hands-on with the bookings, menu planning (black cod!), flower arrangement and table preparations in the six weeks leading up. Another special mention must go to Juan, our Head Waiter. Juan practically felt like a part of the family by the end of lunch! His professional, charming and yet wonderfully easy nature made it genuinely sad to leave that afternoon, and his kind words about my somewhat spontaneous speech as well as his genuine enthusiasm about the group honestly made us want to do it all again. We really could not have been looked after better.

I have been lucky enough to partner up with the wonderful Perrier-Jouët who I want to personally thank for not only their incredible overwhelming generosity in making Perrier-Jouët x Bee Bazaar happen – but also for every step involved in making it the wonderful success it was! Chantal’s sheer hard work, creativity and attention to detail right from the get-go has resulted in an overwhelming response in addition to features in Tatler, HELLO!, The Times, Evening Standard Magazine and the Daily Mail.

And now for new and exciting horizons for Bee Bazaar! It is often challenging to balance both this and run White Circle Collection, but the two rather unsurprisingly marry well together. A huge part of my job is finding out what events are up and coming in London – Londoners are submerged with information overload and I wanted Bee Bazaar to be a more focused channel, the what, when, where – connecting people with new and interesting opportunities happening in London right now. The feedback so far has been overwhelming and hugely exciting. I have spoken with inspirational people and read thought provoking email responses along the way – each and every one carefully digested and key to making Bee Bazaar the go-to platform for Londoners.

What a way to bring in Spring 2018, and one week later – we’re already planning the next one… Watch this space! xx

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