Hen Party #1 - Afternoon Tea at The Ritz

Time has flown over the past couple of weeks, and after a whole year of planning and preparation my little sister Stephanie got married a week last Saturday. I seem to have been going on about the wedding forever so I can hardly believe it's finally happened! It was a beautiful day, and I'll definitely be sharing the hair and makeup I did in a future post. We did our own and it turned out well, with no last-minute meltdowns, which I have to say I was pretty impressed by! 

Anyway, it seems about six months ago now, but a couple of weeks before the wedding, we had Hen Party Number One. This was a blatant excuse for me, Steph, our Mum and our Aunty to do something we'd wanted to do and talked about doing for ages - go for afternoon tea at the Ritz in London.

I've been in two minds about whether to write this post or not, simply because the photos didn't turn out as well as I would have liked. I was over-excited because of the occasion and my mind wasn't really on the job. I also didn't want my sister's hen party to turn into a photo shoot for my blog and as a result the photos I got weren't the greatest. Even so, there are enough to at least give you an idea of the experience, and speaking for myself I would always rather see what someone got up to than not, even if the pictures aren't spectacular. I'm nosy like that! So I hope you are too. ;-)

Let's start with what's really important - what I wore.

Dress - Asos, Shoes and Bag - Zara, Necklace - H&M, Ring - Accessorize, Watch - Jord

The dress is the Asos wiggle dress which is available in about a squillion different colours, prints and variations (front splits, open backs, etc). For a fancy afternoon tea I wanted something floral and lady-like and this fit the bill perfectly. I added nude heels and a structured bag, then threw on the statement necklace just to keep an element of fun.

Once I had finished taking selfies, I met up with my Aunty and the two of us caught the train from Doncaster to London. (Pretty soon after we had set off, we realised that we were in fact on the wrong train, and would have to pay for new tickets, but let's just pretend that didn't happen.) We met Steph and my Mum in London and took a taxi to the Ritz. I'd never actually been inside it before, so I couldn't wait to see what it looked like.

I wasn't disappointed. The interior is just how you might imagine a royal palace to have looked about 100 years ago, opulence and grandeur around every corner.

Our tickets had instructed us to arrive early, and after a couple of minutes exploring our decadent surroundings, it was time to take our seats in the Palm Court, where tea would be served.

We were so busy catching up, admiring the table settings and generally being over-excited that we totally forgot to look at the menu. The waiters, who were very friendly and kind to us throughout the whole afternoon, simply poured us some champagne and left us for a few more minutes to choose our tea.

There were dozens of teas to choose from and they all sounded so mouth-watering that it was really hard to pick just one. In the end, most of us opted for the Ritz Royal English - mostly because of the name - while my Aunty chose Darjeeling First Flush, the "champagne of teas", according to the menu. Both proved to be excellent choices.

Tea arrived along with a plate of mouth-watering sandwiches and dainty cakes. I must confess, we all enjoyed the sandwiches a little too much. We had ham and mustard, egg, smoked salmon, chicken and cheese and pickle. All very classic flavours and beautifully done.

As I said, we felt so happy sitting there sipping champagne, sipping tea and chatting about the wedding that we didn't quite realise how many of those tasty little sandwiches we were putting away. We even said yes when we were offered another plateful. As tiny as they look, they were surprisingly filling, and we were forgetting that there was so much more to come. We soon remembered when a waiter swept by and deposited a plate of scones on our table. There were other delights to be tasted and it was time to step away from the sandwiches.

Scones aren't usually my favourite thing, but served like this with jam and cream as part of an afternoon tea I find myself only too happy to indulge. These were freshly baked and delicious, and not too big, which I appreciated as I was beginning to wonder if we'd have any room left for cakes by this point! As dainty as everything is, we found the portions very generous. There were enough scones on our table for us to have two each - one plain and one with fruit, although in our case no one could manage a second.

Just when I was beginning to cast my beady eyes towards the pink macaroons and layered chocolate cake on the top tier of our tray, along came the waiters with yet more cakes which they sliced and served to us from a trolley. We were getting pretty full by this point, but we all felt that on such an occasion we really ought to say yes to everything. So we had some orange and lemon drizzle cake.

Well, it would have been rude not to.

And then, finally, it was time to sample the delights of the top tier.

Both the raspberry macaroon and the chocolate cake were delicious but sadly I only had room left for a forkful of each. I probably would have preferred these to the drizzle cake, but I guess this was one important life lesson I just had to learn the hard way!

The experience of afternoon tea at the Ritz was every bit as lovely as we'd imagined, and perfect for a genteel, relaxed alternative to a traditional hen party. It's incredibly popular and my sister had to book a few months in advance to make sure we got a table. While the couple of hours we spent there seemed to fly by, we never felt rushed in any way despite how busy it was. The atmosphere was lively but chilled and we were surrounded by the chatter of other diners and some pleasant, unobtrusive music from the piano. 

We paid £66 per person for the champagne afternoon tea and in my opinion it was well worth the price. (Without the champagne it's £50.) Would we go again? Definitely, though I think we would try somewhere else first. Claridges perhaps. That's next on our list!

Is afternoon tea your thing and have you visited the Ritz?

Stay tuned for Hen Party #2, coming soon!

Kate x