Tea, Cocktails and Wedding Venues
As Chief Bridesmaid and Usher, our dear friends Annie and Nick are subject to certain privileges (or chores as some may see them) prior to the wedding.
One of these was a sneak preview of our wedding venue last weekend. Robbie and I dragged the other happy couple up to Embankment for a guided tour around the venue of choice - One Whitehall Place.
Of course, no afternoon in London is complete without afternoon tea, and feeling slightly worse-for-wear courtesy of the previous evening, we opted for the traditional menu at The Royal Horseguards Hotel, and forwent the Champagne ...did those words just come out of my mouth?!? (or fingers should I say).
The tea consisted of the expected but also included a couple of little surprises such as this rather delicious egg mayonnaise choux pastry
After 'unlimited refills' of sandwiches... cucumber, smoked salmon and cream cheese, coronation chicken, beef and horseradish... we moved onto our scones - obviously smothered with a healthy dose of cream and jam, and then onto the tantalising puds...
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| Amazing flavours: Earl-Grey-chocolate-melt-in-the-middle-bomb-lollipop |
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| Bitter sweet: sharp fruit topping over a delicious creamy base |
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| And of course, a mini cupcake |
Somehow managing to heave ourselves out of the bed-like armchairs and away from the delicate strings of the harp we made our way across the hall to the wedding venue.
I'll save the wedding venue pics till after the big day next year... but you can see some of the function rooms here.
Still feeling full, we took a stroll along the River to the church where we will be having the ceremony - The Queen's Chapel of the Savoy. Unfortunately - as expected - the chapel was closed, but we managed to get a peak of the newly landscaped courtyard area.
Having not eaten or drunk anything for the last hour, we were all starting to fade away and so had no option but to nip into the nearest watering hole to recharge. Luckily this happened to be one of Annie and my favourite bars at The Savoy Hotel.
Just before the bar there is a 'mini museum' with some interesting little additions such as this framed coin that was the first taken by the hotel in 1889... (and happened to be for a bottle of Champagne!)
After studying the extensive menu, soft drinks definitely seemed like a cop-out and hangovers were forgotten as we tucked into cocktails accompanied by the live pianist... (in the very dark bar area)
Being the Bond Season, this was the specialty offering:
So of course we had to sample. It was a refreshing mix of gin, vodka, wines, syrup and Japanese Yuzu juice, which we could have sat drinking all night!
As well as the Skyfall, we also sampled the Piano Man; another refreshing mix that even included cucumber... the perfect cocktail to get you back into the swing of things!
