A tea ceremony, two kitchens and a groom with a band

The brief

The ceremony that happens after the ceremony

On paper this was a reception booking. No ceremony, no aisle, no processional. In practice the second floor spent twenty minutes as a ceremony room.

The gap between the wedding the law recognises and the wedding a family recognises is one of the most common problems we are asked to solve. A church, a city hall or an officiant handles the first. The second needs somewhere to happen, usually on the same day, usually for a much smaller group, and almost always while everybody else is standing around with a drink.

The tea ceremony ran from ten past five to half past, immediate family only, with family photographs in the same setting afterwards. A red double happiness banner, paper lanterns in reds and oranges, a red velvet settee, floor cushions on a patterned rug, the tea service laid out low.

It needs its own quiet, and it needs to happen while eighty other people are somewhere they cannot see or hear it. That is a building problem rather than a catering problem. Two floors solve it. One floor does not.

Concurrent, 5:10pm to 5:30pm

Downstairs, twenty minutes of quiet

While the tea ceremony ran on the second floor, the cocktail hour carried on above it on the third. Canapes passing, nobody waiting on anything, no announcement asking a room of guests to hold still.

The two events were happening at the same moment, one floor apart, and neither one interrupted the other. That is the whole argument for the building, and it is easier to show than to explain.

The evening

An unusually early dinner, for a reason

Guests were seated at a quarter to six. That is early for a Saturday, and it was deliberate. The whole evening had been built backwards from an eight o'clock move upstairs, which bought the party five hours instead of the usual ninety minutes.

The kitchen

One menu holding two families' food at once

The couple did not want a Korean course followed by a Chinese course. They wanted a single menu where both families recognised the food, on every plate, all evening.

Sujeonggwa is a Korean cinnamon and ginger punch. It is normally served cold, and normally drunk. Turning it into an ice cream and setting candied pine nut and persimmon on top is the kind of thing that only happens when a kitchen is asked to do something specific rather than asked to cater a wedding.

If two families both expect to recognise the food, have that conversation early. It is not a substitution request. It is a menu built from nothing, and it takes time.

The rooms

Long tables under the arched windows

Dinner ran on the second floor, long tables set end to end beneath the arched windows and the brick, with festoon lighting overhead. Upstairs, the third floor held the bar, the lounge seating and the photobooth, and stayed open until one.