I first blogged this item in September last year http://www.hallofcakes.co.uk/blog/66/a-london-wedding-park-lane-hilton-london but now I have access to some more images would like to tell you a little more…
The Cardoso and Alakija families are both from Lagos, Nigeria – where the couple first met and also held their lavish engagement celebrations.
Lolade & Ladi chose to hold their white wedding ceremony, cocktail reception and evening banquet in London – at the Hilton in Mayfairs’ Park Lane.
It is not unusual for us to be commissioned quite late in terms of wedding/event production but in this case, from our initial meeting with the client at the hotel to the wedding date (23 August), we had just six weeks to design, create and assemble. Quite a tall order – literally.
The whole event was overseen by Kate of Bespoke London Events http://www.bespoke-london.co.uk and Sarah Ducker of SJD Eventshttp://www.sjdevents.comwas also largely involved in bringing the event together.
Leading up to the wedding, Sarah Ducker was my contact and she worked tirelessly to bring so people and finite details together.
Sarah was totally amazing and it did not surprise me that on the weekend of the event itself Sarah worked solidly onsite for 55 hours. Who says you can’t live on Red Bull and Caffeine…?
The production of this truly lavish wedding brought the true meaning of ‘event planning’ to life.
The set up took over 36 hours, starting at daylight on the morning of Thursday 22nd August. The final curtain came down when the derig and clear up finally ended at 5.30pm on Saturday afternoon of the 24th.
Celebrations started on the Friday for the couple with a beautifully co-ordinated wedding ceremony at Mayfairs Farm Street Church. Loladi wore Hayley by Vera Wang and as you can se from the photos here, looked incredible.
Then back to the Hilton were a truly lavish banquet awaited the couple in the grand Ballroom – preceded by a champagne reception on the Harvest Ballroom.
A 28 piece grand orchestra, a show stopping production of Swan Lake by the Royal Ballet, a 5 course dinner for over 500 guests, a stunning eight tier wedding cake (if I say so myself!), Ice fountains, confetti cannons…. ending with disco sounds with Mr Soul until 3.45am. No wonder this has been reported as the most expensive Nigerian wedding in history….
I hope you enjoy these images. Unfortunately they are not the full size images I would have liked to include but I think they give you a good idea of scale of the wedding celebrations.
My only slight disappointment was not have got more close up images of the cake, whilst we did take many, we left the venue prior to the full lighting set going up sadly didn’t get any many detailed images under good light. There are few posted in the initial blog post however, that will give you some idea of the intricate detail of the design
It was fantastic to be involved in this production. I absolutely thrive on pressure and challenge (not quite sure I was saying that 3 days before the event but I can happily say it now!).
This certainly was a cake I will never forget. Not only for the hundreds of tiny sugar flowers and petals that we spent days (and nights) making that adorned the cake, or the sleepless nights in stressing about the set up, or the 5am start, or the transportation of 8 tiers or delicately iced sponge..
but for the feeling of immense and absolute satisfaction when stood on a ladder I added the finishing posey of stunning pink roses.
Nicola…