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Alicia Waite

At Home With Rosalyn Wikeley, Travel Editor at The Wedding Edition

Join us as Rosalyn Wikeley, Travel Editor at The Wedding Edition invites us into her beautiful home and shows us how she styles and uses her presents from her gift list with The Wedding Present Company. From terrazzo tumblers to hotel-grade bed linen, here are Rosalyn Wikeley‘s favourite items from The Wedding Present Company.

Alicia Waite

As published on The Wedding Edition, by Rosalyn Wikeley

Admittedly, I had edited a wedding supplement for a glossy magazine the same month my husband proposed, so my research (along with some good old fashioned word-of-mouth) led me directly to The Wedding Present Company’s door. What would have helped, in the haze of planning a 250-guest wedding in four fast months, would have been style edits from real brides that aligned with my own style, (which, incidentally, The Wedding Present Company now do on their Real Weddings blog.

So here it is, consider it my wedding gift to you. One that is hopefully useful even to those not wild about my personal style, but curious to see which items someone else has prioritised for their new lives together. These are a few of my favourite The Wedding Present Company pieces, shot at our London family home. Enjoy. 

The Colombia Collective’s woven place mats always make me smile and pair beautifully with Maison Margaux’s intricately-printed table clothsHot Pottery and Late Afternoon’s serving plates instantly make whatever I’ve knocked up look more delicious, and I use Bordallo Pinheiro’s cabbage bowls every day for sauces, salt or nuts..

I love the bright, zesty flourishes from the candles by Candle Flair to the Summerill and Bishop napkins, and how the mahogany furniture and old fashioned family cutlery converses fluidly with the cool Issy Granger pom wine glasses and fresh Sophie Conran for Portmeirion crockery. The candle sticks I lugged back from Marrakech have even made it to the party, and somehow it all works – though blooms, such as these from the floristry wizards at Escape To The Cutting Garden, always help.

A bride recently asked me for my favourite item on our wedding list. My answer surprised her: ‘a silver jam lid and a Helmut Newton Coffee Table Monster’ – both not particularly useful, nor fairly balanced between husband and wife, but they were items I’d struggle to justify buying myself and were therefore special, and treasured. 

We were one of those immensely fortunate couples. Fortunate in the not-so-distant sense that we were married on the set date, without postponing or agonising over whether to press on or hold back. Whenever I catch our wedding photos in passing, now framed in tortoiseshell, thick bamboo or engraved silver, I can’t help but see naivety amid all the dancing, cheshire-cat grinning and euphoria, as if someone, somewhere knew what was coming. Insurance conversations were over damaged dresses or a flight cancellations, not a world-wide Pandemic. 

I love outdoor entertaining and Addison Ross’ generous scalloped trays make it a breeze. These Amuse La Bouche cushions ease afternoons into awkward garden furniture. I’m all for long, romantic candles in the garden at night – shown here alongside my beloved terrazzo tumblers.

Neom have somehow consolidated their status as the paragon of all delicious smelling candles (feels less sinful lighting one when it’s a gift) and I actually stumbled upon Rosanna Corfe Slytherin-style rugs on The Wedding Present Company, which I prefer to the more subdued style of sofa throw.

Our honeymoon was the last exotic escapade, or escapade full-stop for a few strange, discombobulating years. Like so many our circumstances changed abruptly, though unlike most newlyweds, we lived and worked together under the same roof, having worked in separate countries. We tapped away on laptops balanced on a console table (the only piece of furniture that had made it to our new home), facing one another on two chairs borrowed from the sympathetic barber on the corner, as if we were about to play chess.  

These green and orange Legle Limoges coffee cup and saucers are the sexy friends to my swishy, café-grade Sage coffee machine. The Addison Ross’ orange and midnight blue salt and pepper grinders always steal the limelight. Fruit is piled here in a woven wonder from The Colombia Collective. I love items where you can’t tell if they’re old or new, like this Nicholas Mosse platter, laden with my favourite almond croissants

The coffee corner is a sacred spot in our house, and a weekend morning ritual: radio on, coffee machine fully loaded, espresso cups at the ready… There is something endlessly smug and spoiling about making good coffee in your own kitchen.

Amid all this strangeness and GIF proliferation, The Wedding Present Company van chugged up our street like the coca-cola truck at Christmas. Rooms were taken over by boxes which our newly-acquired kittens duly clambered into to inspect. Inside each one lay an item that linked us to one of our friends and family – a salient theme of that whole chapter but one that made the present arrival experience that much more sentimental. They also spun us back to the day and the minestrone of emotions that accompanied it. Not only this but they were actually items I truly needed or had fantasised over, and suddenly longed to use at dinners and social occasions once again. 

This is a more formal layout for smart family dos or ‘Sunday Best.’ Maison Margaux‘ place mats effortlessly animate the most pared down table without looking too fussy. I have also always loved mixing old fashioned glasses with stylish shapes and colours and these Gurasu blue tumblers are just the timeless sort I hope survive the next few decades.

It’s The Wedding Present Company’s sharp curation but equally its broad sweep of brands (some exclusive) that initially drew me to create a list with them. The visual layout of the site enabled me to create something close to a moodboard – to essentially decorate the house digitally and pull it into one, comprehensible list where people were safe in the knowledge that we’d love and genuinely use everything on there. We particularly warmed to the charity option, which could be integrated into the list itself, and had endless fun trawling through items on the website, mapping out our lives together via little crisp linenbeach barbecues and cocktail sets.

I love easy, fuss-free cooking so opted for a Le Creuset (renowned for outliving their owners). I really went to town on the serving platters, like this one from Hot Pottery, and use all of them for those Ottolenghi-style lunches.

I’m not wild about sets of the same ceramics – I love mixing different colours and patterns together, which can sometimes go wrong but it’s usually worth the risk for a more playful table.

I fondly remember visiting The Wedding Present Company’s cavernous Chelsea showroom and seeing items I’d lusted over on the website in the flesh, then stumbling upon others I’d clearly missed during late night scrolling missions. It’s the little details that make The Wedding Present Company team a joy to work with and engaged couples feel looked after, from the glass of Nyetimber on arrival to the human being (not robot) on the end of a phone or email, should there be a delivery query or last minute edit. I even took a little grey candle home that still sits in our kitchen. It was one of the most exciting, stress-free aspects of our wedding planning (which was largely executed from pubs with our woeful lack of wifi in a rented Notting Hill flat, and by yours truly as my husband-to-be used international borders as an excuse to duck out of the details). 

The Wedding Present Company was a detail even he was unwilling to overlook, and I watched him trawl enthusiastically through pages of bookends, whisky glasses and garden pots – making the most of our shared access and ability to curate the list together on a ‘live’ page. 

I’m a big believer in splurging on bed linen (or wisely adding it to your wedding list), and the White Company is my go to. The cushion party on our sofa got a little crowded, so I moved these Oka burnt velvet numbers to the spare bedroom for a little colour.

From the paper thin glass tumblers to the rustic-style serving dishes, plump velvet cushions and barista-grade coffee machine, these Wedding Present Company items have now woven themselves into our shared rituals, so their deliberation shouldn’t be taken lightly. 

I love the alchemy of making cocktails and these Royal Scot tumblers don’t need a lot of dressing up to look good. Our Vintage List Champagne coupes rarely gather dust and are always fun to bring out on large trays like this one from the Lacquer Company.‘t ne

ROSALYN'S FAVOURITE PRESENTS

Serving Platter, 44cm, Splatter, Blueberry
Hot Pottery
£80.00
Serving Plate, D28cm, Circus, Yellow
Late Afternoon
£55.00
Napkin, 50cm x 50cm, Stripe Linen, Lemon Yellow
Summerill & Bishop
£27.50
Set of 6 Tapered Dinner Candles, H35cm, Pumpkin Orange
Candle Flair
£22.00
Wine Glass, 150ml, Pom, Blue
Issy Granger
£28.00
12-piece dinner set, Ceramics, White
Sophie Conran for Portmeirion
£170.00
Jam jar lid, Orange, silver plate
Culinary Concepts
£20.00
Lacquered Scallop Ottoman Tray 66 x 43cm, Orange
Addison Ross
£230.00
Set of 4 Hand Made Glass Tumblers, H11cm, Oro, Brown
Late Afternoon
£112.00
Scented Candle Tranquillity, 420g, Scent to Sleep
NEOM Wellbeing London
£55.00
Espresso machine, 1.9 litre, The Bambino Plus, Brushed Stainless Steel
Sage
£400.00
Salt & Pepper Grinder, H24cm, Bobbin, Orange
Addison Ross
£58.00
Salt & Pepper Grinder, H24cm, Bobbin, Navy
Addison Ross
£58.00
Presentation Platter, Fuchsia, 35cm
Nicholas Mosse
£122.00
DAB Digital Radio, Revival RD70, Leaf Green
Roberts Radio
£180.00
Round casserole, 30cm - 8.1 litre, Signature Cast Iron, Volcanic
Le Creuset
£399.00
Plain Velvet Cushion Cover, Large - Burnt Orange
OKA
£60.00
Set of 6 champagne glasses, 150ml, Ovals, Crystal
The Vintage List
£88.00
Classic Cuvee Multi Vintage, Single Bottle, 750ml
Nyetimber
£41.50
Lantern, H58cm, Sia, Antique Black/Clear
Nkuku
£95.00
Embroidered Tea Towel, 50 x 70cm, Home Sweet Home, Blue/White
Amuse La Bouche
£32.00