You Can Have Your Own Royal Wedding Reception

Ahh… love. So, if you’re like me and millions of others, we’ve been overloaded with royal wedding madness this past week. But really, who doesn’t love Harry and how cute he is with his new bride, the newly created Meghan, Duchess of Sussex. Seriously though, their wedding was pretty fantastic. What of the royal wedding reception, however? hmmm…

The Flowers

The flower garlands were overwhelming in scale and apparently smelled amazing. Except if you’re James Corden who, while saying they were “the most beautiful flowers you’ve ever seen”  is apparently allergic and spent the wedding trying not to sneeze. The flowers were designed by Philippa Craddock.

Philippa has such a gorgeous, natural style.

She even does faux florals. Yes, these below are faux! Another sign that faux is not outdated!

The Cake

The cake was done by American baker Claire Ptak of London-based Violet Cakes.  I shared some pics from her IG in my look-ahead post to the royal wedding and there was a hint of this gorgeous wedding cake to come!

Isn’t this just to die for??? And, it looks like it must taste as good as it looks. One thing I love about this presentation – where there are several smaller cakes split into different presentation platters and goblets –  is that you could do it at home. Okay, most of us could never do it this well, obviously. But one of the hardest things about DIY’ing a wedding cake is the sheer scale of the enterprise. Large pans, tiers, the transportation issues. It’s part of the reason why wedding cakes are so expensive. But, several smaller, simply decorated cakes with fresh flowers in pretty silver or gold service pieces? Genius.

So, the royals know what they’re doing when it comes to security and privacy. There have been almost no pictures released of the wedding reception – either afternoon luncheon event for the 600 wedding attendees hosted by the Queen or the more intimate (well, 200 people intimate) formal evening soiree hosted by Prince Charles at Frogmore House. My friend Joni of Cote De Texas has a great post with lots of wedding details including a few of the pics that have leaked from the wedding reception.

You can have it too!

I have totally fallen in love with the table settings offered by the talented folks at Casa de Perrin who does weddings, branding and table scape design for purchase or rental.

The work of Casa de Perrin is certainly fit for a royal wedding reception, isn’t it?

I have long loved the work of floral and event designer Grayson Handy of Prudence Designs in NY.

I’ve had his book Flowers for the Home for several years and it’s alway so inspirational!

Of course, his beautiful Romeo the dachshund is my absolute favorite part of the book. (ETA: Sadly, Romeo passed away in January 2019. Photo by: Michael Brian)

From Prudence Design’s IG posts:

So, are we all royal wedding’d out? Probably a little but it was nice, with everything going on the world, to have a break that was filled with beauty, love, flowers and cake. You just can’t go wrong there.