Since opening its doors over three years ago the iconic Green’s brand has hosted some of the most talked about weddings in the CIty of London at its historic Cornhill venue, right in the heart of the City of London , opposite the Bank of England.

The venue, Grade II listed, the former head of building of Lloyds Bank, offers the ultimate in terms of history, glamour and flexibility. Spread over two floors, featuring marble columns, high ceilings and an eye catching central marble staircase, it offers a wealth of memorable photo opportunities, a Runner Bar in art deco style, together with a number of style and layout options, ranging from seated functions for up to 200 guests to canapé receptions for 450.

Green’s have now launched their formal Wedding Guide that details the various package options that are available to  couples looking to host a memorable wedding at a remarkable wedding venue in London.

The guide provides full details of all of the configuration options available together with sample menu ideas, and details of all the add on entertainment elements that can be provided throughout the wedding day.

It’s experienced team of planners and support staff can assist you in planning every step of your special day.

For more information, to arrange a tour or start an enquiry please contact sarah@greens.org.uk.

With the excitement , atmosphere and tension mounting in advance of the London 2012 Olympics, London is bracing itself for the biggest invasion of visitors and tourists for years.
Build up events have started in earnest and there can be no doubt that the start of the LOndon Olympics is just around the corner.
Along with the many logistical issues that running an event of this magnitude throws up, finding good places to eat during the Olympics is going to be no easy task with demand for the best restaurants certain to spiral.
Green’s have already begun to gear up for this increased demand in both it’s West End and City based restaurants having announced plans to ensure that diners and drinkers in their bars and restaurants can experience a true London Olympics dining experience throughout the Games.

Green’s in the West End

Gren’s Duke Street wil be open from 11.30 until late throughout the duration of the London Olympics, and will be providing the opportunity to watch every minute of the Olympic action whilst you enjoy a drink at the bar or enjoy some of the traditional, classic British food that is synonomous with the Green’s name.

Their private dining facilities will also be available should you wish to entertain privately and put on your own tailored London Olympics dining experience. It offers the ideal venue in the West End for your own drinks reception whilst watching the major moments of the Games.

Green’s in the City

Throughout the 2012 Olympics Green’s will be showing all events live on two screens in The Runner Bar, to ensure that diners or drinkers won’t miss a second of the action.

Or for a more planned and private London Olympics dining experience they will be offering the opportunity for you to hold your own Olympics dining parties with two bookable areass:

• The Bank Of England Room
• The Mezzanine Floor

With Olympics fever really starting to bite and if you are needing to plan on god places to eat during the LOndon Olympics we would advise that you book early to avoid disappointment.

Whatever your requirment at Green’s we will work with you to provide the perfect tailored Olympics dining experience.

To discuss your requirements in more details please contact sarah@greens.org.uk or telephone 202 7220 6300.

Royal Ascot was founded by Queen Anne in 1711 and is attended by the Queen and members of the royal family, who arrive each day in a horse-drawn carriage with a royal procession from Windsor castle. The Queen’s Royal Standard is raised at the start of each race day.

The dates for Royal Ascot 2012 are:

• Tuesday 19th June – Royal Ascot featuring The Queen Anne Stakes, The St James’s Palace Stakes and The King’s Stand Stakes
• Wednesday 20th June – Royal Ascot featuring The Prince of Wales’s Stakes
• Thursday 21st June – Royal Ascot featuring The Gold Cup
• Friday 22nd June – Royal Ascot featuring The Coronation Stakes
• Saturday 23rd June – Royal Ascot featuring The Golden Jubilee Stakes

There are seven Group One races and 18 Group races overall.
There are three enclosures at the racecourse from which to view the racing, but the Royal Enclosure has a strict dress code which has been revised for 2012. So, ladies are reminded that formal day wear is required and that a hat should be worn. Dresses and tops should have straps of one inch or thicker, even when covered by a jacket. Fascinators are no longer permitted in the Royal Enclosure – headpieces have to sufficiently cover the head and may not be less than 10cm in surface area.

So, what are the trends for 2012?

Lace regained in popularity thanks to “that dress” and the vintage movement is strong, evidenced by the dedicated vintage fairs being held all over the country. Church weddings have also seen an increase in popularity.

Art deco is very much in vogue, from the elegant, shimmery, dresses to stationery and venues. Green’s Cornhill, built in the 1930’s is an impressive space which is perfect for this theme, but the versatility of the bar and restaurant area also means it is a blank canvas for the bridal couple to showcase their personal style.

The dress styles of the fifties and sixties are seeing a revival as “new vintage” in both wedding and High Street fashion. Red lipstick, boat necklines off creamy shoulders, hour-glass figures and fish tail endings, descending a majestic staircase, make for a glamorous and grand entrance. Diamante hair clips and crystal bouquets are keepsakes that never wilt – again, a sign of our times, when we search for stability and enduring beauty.

The Bohemian look, evidenced by Kate Moss’s wedding last year is popular and open to quirky personal touches. This year might see more of the tribal and busy designs of mainstream fashion taken up and wooden invitations are already available.

Adversity brings forth tremendous creativity, and couples are, more than ever, stretching their imaginations to create pops of cheerful colour, even if it means blue shoes and purple hair. What’s important is that it is unique, personal and a memorable, happy, celebration.

The year 2012 coincides with the 200th birthday of Charles Dickens, born on 7 February, 1812 who is considered to have had more influence on the way we celebrate Christmas than any other individual.

At the beginning of the Victorian period, the medieval Christmas celebrations, combining Roman pagan festivities and the Germanic winter festival of Yule, had come under intense scrutiny by the Puritans. The industrial revolution left little time for workers to celebrate. Christmas was in a decline! Then Prince Albert brought the German tradition of decorating the Christmas tree to our shores and the first Christmas card appeared in the 1840’s. Carol singing was revived, but it was Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol”, published in 1843, that rekindled the joy of Christmas in Britain and America.

The town of Rochester has held an annual Dickensian Christmas since 1988, with lamp-lit parades, Victorian delights, carols, guaranteed snowfall and familiar, fabled characters from Dickens’s much-loved stories wandering the streets.

It is a very British year, with the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, the London 2012 Olympics and the Dickens bicentennial. Green’s Restaurant and Oyster Bar is a British icon in the City and the West End and a perfect venue for celebrating Christmas.

This year, when so many are worse off than before, it would be especially fitting to honour Dickens’s description of Christmas as being “a good time: a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of other people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.”

Auctions:

22 February 2012 Sothebys (New Bond Street) Finest and Rarest Wines
29 February 2012 Christies (South Kensington) Christie’s Interiors
6 March 2012 Bonhams (Knightsbridge) British and Continental Pictures
7 March 2012 Bonhams (New Bond Street) Fine English Furniture and Works of Art
13 March 2012 Sothebys (New Bond Street) Fine Jewels
21 March 2012 Christies (South Kensington) Books
29 March 2012 Bonhams (New Bond Street) Fine and Rare Wine
30 March 2012 Bonhams (Knightsbridge) Polar Sale: Scott and Amundsen Centenary
4 April 2012 Bonhams (Knightsbridge) Modern Sporting Guns, Impressionist and Modern Art
17 April 2012 Christies (South Kensington) Vintage and Olympic Posters
18 April 2012 Christies (South Kensington) Vintage Film Posters
18 April 2012 Bonhams (New Bond Street) Fine British Pottery & Porcelain and English Enamels
24 April 2012 Sothebys (New Bond Street) The Orientalist Sale
25 April 2012 Bonhams (New Bond Street) Antiquities

2 May 2012 Bonhams (Knightsbridge) Old Master Paintings
2 May 2012 Christies (South Kensington) Jewellery
10 May 2012 Christies (King Street) Wine
16 May 2012 Sothebys (New Bond Street) Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art
30 May 2012 Bonhams (New Bond Street) British and Irish Art
13 June 2012 Christies (King Street) Books
17 June 2012 Christies (South Kensington) The Sunday Sale
20 June 2012 Bonhams (New Bond Street) Fine Silver

Events

24-26 May 2012 Olympia Antiquarian Book Fair, Olympia www.olympiabookfair.com
3 June 2012 Thames Diamond Jubilee Pageant, the River Thames
4 June 2012 Diamond Jubilee BBC Concert, Buckingham Palace
5 June 2012 Service of Thanksgiving and Carriage Procession, St. Paul’s Cathedral
7-10 June 2012 PINTA (Latin American modern and contemporary art fair) Earl’s Court www.pintaart.com
7-17 June 2012 Olympia International Fine Art & Antiques Fair, Olympia, www.olympia-art-antiques.com

7 June – 15 August The Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, Burlington House, www.royalacademy.org.uk

9-15 June 2012 Art Antiques London (antiques) Kensington Gardens www.haughton.com

28 June- 4 July 2012 Masterpiece London, Royal Hospital Chelsea, www.masterpiecefair.com

Do you have your Olympics tickets?

The allocation of tickets by ballot has caused some controversy, as have the ticket and hotel packages offered by Thomas Cook and corporate hospitality company Cosport, with hoteliers furious at the mark-ups on their room rates. The British Hospitality Association argues that the rooms allocated to LOCOG were not meant to be sold on. The counter argument is that the inflated rates are the price you pay for certainty, because the guaranteed room comes with guaranteed tickets to specific events. It’s not surprising that in such uncertain times, “certainty” is at a premium…!

But, on a more positive note, Londoners are starting to talk about the forthcoming Games with many looking forward to the excitement, colour and spectacle, and especially, to the ladies beach volleyball tournament! There are articles in the Metro and Evening Standard encouraging miserable commuters to cycle to work and to the Olympic park. Hopefully the weather will be vastly improved.

There is talk of the West End shows closing over the relevant period due to a predicted drop in attendance and yet there is a cultural Olympiad planned with 1000 events involving art, theatre, dance and poetry scheduled from 21 June – 9 September to be held at, amongst others, the Barbican theatre. Juliette Binoche, Cate Blanchette, Toni Morrison and Peter Sellars are some of the celebrities taking part.

Most believe the Games will be good for London and the UK. Others think the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee is more exciting. The US embassy is offering advice to its citizens on visiting London and on how to avoid ticket and accommodation scams.

The Huffington Post and New York Times have featured positive and interesting reports on the East London tours offered free by the London Greeters service. Tours of the Olympic Park are also available at £9 an adult.

Perhaps the most surprising aspect of the Games is that the Olympic flame will be lit on the 10th of May, using the sun’s rays at the Temple of Hera in Olympia in a traditional hour-long ceremony amongst the historic ruins of the home of the ancient Games. As an elderly gentleman remarked recently: “old is gold!”

IF YOU GO

To arrange a London Greeters (visiteastlondon.com/london-greeters) tour of East London, send an e-mail to greeters@greenwich.gov.uk about two weeks in advance. The free tours, limited to six people, last about one to four hours.
Tour Guides offers a two-hour daily Olympic Park walking tour at 11 a.m., departing from the Bromley-by-Bow Underground station, for £9, or $13.65 at $1.50 to the pound, for an adult. Reserve a space at tourguides2012.co.uk.

For couples contemplating getting married, wedding fairs can provide inspiration for themes as well as meeting the suppliers in person.

The trend in vintage-themed weddings is popularised by Vintage Wedding Fairs being held all over the country this year. In a recession, there is some comfort to be had in the beautiful lace, crystal bouquets and glamorous silhouettes of yesteryear. If you’re lucky enough to possess your grandmother’s wedding veil, then 2012 is the year it will be truly admired.

Similarly, the Designer Wedding and Luxury Wedding Shows this year, emphasise craftsmanship, individuality and quality. The buzz word is “passion” not for each other, but for bespoke, handmade shoes.

Given the economic climate, couples are being savvy shoppers, in search of the maximum bang for their buck. The internet serves to educate so that when the tribe of bride, maids and mother of- descend on a Wedding Fair, the chances are that they will already have an idea of what they are looking for.

The multitude of wedding bloggers and online magazines provide insights into real weddings and a plethora of ideas to suit every character, such as the Rock ‘n Roll bride blog which aims to “provide a little haven of kick ass weddingness in a cookie cutter, pastel and often puke-worthy wedding world.”

In a move away from the “wedding bazaar” of suppliers at the overwhelmingly enormous shows, there is a trend towards smaller, local and more manageable exhibitions such as the Luxury Wedding Show at One London Wall, open from 4-8pm on Tuesday evening 21 February, perfect for a busy City worker looking for a wedding cake supplier who serves the square mile.

Green’s Restaurant and Oyster Bar at 14 Cornhill, in the City of London, (EC3V 3ND) can offer brides the grandeur of a past era in its impressive double volume space, but more importantly, it is a blank canvas for the creation of a truly unique wedding day. For couples who are foodies and wish to pamper their guests with a delicious wedding feast, the iconic Green’s, Cornhill provides all the answers.

Tickets are £25 with all the profits going to the charity. There will be a private shopping event on the night with 15% of all revenue generated going to Dress for Success.