Client dinners and receptions: a plus one who has read the brief
Mayfair conducts a good deal of its business over dinner, and much of the remainder at receptions in the ballrooms along Park Lane. A guest who arrives at either alone gets noticed for the wrong reasons. The event line supplies a companion who is well read, well dressed and properly briefed, and who understands that the evening belongs to your work rather than to her.
Event bookings are held with 50 percent by bank transfer, with the travel component non-refundable. The hours follow the standard ladder on the rates page: three hours at £700 covers most receptions, four hours at £900 a seated dinner, and a gala that runs very late is sometimes better written as an overnight. Every figure is agreed before anything is confirmed.
Suited to client dinners and receptions
The brief
Before the evening, give the house what she needs to know and nothing beyond it: the venue, the dress code, the length, how you intend to introduce her, and any subject best avoided. A first name is usually introduction enough. If the evening has a guest list, a line on who matters most at the table helps her place her attention where it counts. She takes your lead on the rest, adds nothing of her own invention, and never mentions how the evening came to be arranged.
Rooms where these evenings happen
The ballroom at Grosvenor House and the one at the London Hilton on Park Lane carry most of the large dinners and award nights. Smaller receptions gather in the private rooms of The Connaught, in the galleries along Cork Street and in the townhouses around Berkeley Square. Client dinners fill the private rooms of Mount Street and St James's, where a table of eight is nothing unusual.
Dress codes, briefly
Black tie calls for a floor length gown or a very elegant cocktail dress. Lounge suit calls for a tailored dress or a suit of her own. Cocktail attire sits between the two: a knee length dress, heels and one good piece of jewellery. Smart casual, in Mayfair, still means something close to lounge suit. If an invitation says anything unusual, send a photograph of the wording with the booking and she will dress to it exactly.
Timing the arrival
For a reception, she arrives at your hotel half an hour before you need to leave, which allows five minutes of briefing in the lobby and a car ride without any rush. For a dinner in a private room, meeting at the venue's bar ten minutes early usually works better. Either way, her hours are counted from the moment you meet. If the invitation names a time for carriages, tell the house, and the end of the booking is set to match it.
Conduct in company
She talks easily with strangers, remembers names after one hearing, and can tell when the conversation at the table has turned to business and she should turn to the guest on her other side. At events she keeps a clear head and a quiet phone. If a colleague asks how you met, the answer is yours to give, and she keeps to the introduction you chose.
Companions suited to a professional room
Margo is the most collected presence on the account and follows contemporary art closely enough to hold her own at a gallery reception. Karolina is precise, private and genuinely worth hearing on architecture. Samanta plays the violin and judges hotels by their corridors, which gives her something to say in any ballroom. Sonya, ballet trained and calm, is the listener a long dinner needs. Violetta, tall and dryly funny, makes an entrance without trying to. Margo, Sonya and Violetta appear in the thirties and beyond profile, which some hosts prefer for a senior table.
When the speeches end
Once the last speech is over, the booking can finish at the door of the venue, or carry on as dinner or a hotel visit if that was written into the arrangement beforehand. Late receptions in St James's often wind up near midnight, and the account answers at that hour as readily as it does at noon.
Questions on this line
An event fixes her whole evening to your timetable and venue, sometimes weeks in advance. The larger deposit reflects that, and its travel component is non-refundable.
However you prefer. A first name is normal. She keeps to the introduction you choose and never volunteers anything about the house.
Yes. Daytime events are written on the same ladder and held with the same 50 percent deposit as evening ones.
Yes, booked as two companions, each on her own line, which suits a dinner for four.
Tell the house as soon as you hear. Three hours' notice or more returns the deposit, less its non-refundable travel component; anything later follows the terms on the rates page.
Several days ahead suits most receptions, and a full week suits a black tie evening, so that her diary and her dress are both settled well before the night.
More services
One line settles it.
Date, time and address on WhatsApp or Telegram, and the house arranges the rest without a trace.