Event Styling in London
OUR EVENT STYLING STORY
The Pink Elephant is an event styling brand in London, designed to elevate special occasions. Through close collaboration with their clients, The Pink Elephant creates events through a chic mix of luxury event decor, delicious grazing platters, sustainable wines, summer picnic boxes, festive winter hampers, and recently, the brand’s very own tablescape merchandise.
Ian Henderson, the man behind The Pink Elephant, was born and raised in Zimbabwe, educated in Australia and now lives in West London. Zimbabwe is well-known for its social community, parties, barbecues and casual get-togethers and Ian counts himself lucky to have grown up within a family that loved to entertain! After years of watching his parents host fabulous parties and entertain, Ian has moulded his hospitable background and love for people into a thriving brand.
While Ian is both gregarious and outgoing in nature, he is also driven by a desire for adventure. The Luxury Event Styling founder has travelled to many places across the world, from backpacking through South-East Asia to discovering the hidden beauties of South America. Ian takes pleasure in exploring the cultures and cuisines of the different continents and then incorporating these influences, whether it’s the bright colours of India or ethnic designs from Kenya, into his own brand.
Towards the end of 2019, with a multitude of experiences along with a love for travelling, food and entertaining, Ian set out to encompass and share his zest for life by creating The Pink Elephant. Initially his vision was to build a tablescaping brand - creating and selling eye-catching table décor - however, Ian quickly noticed a growing popularity and opportunity centring around grazing platters. The advent of 2020 brought with it a global pandemic and months of subsequent lockdown, yet at the same time it provided Ian with the perfect opportunity – time and headspace to come up with the The Pink Elephant concept and brainchild.
Picture: Signature Safari grazing platter
Starting with the quirky brand name given his African roots, Ian wanted to capture the idea that his business could enter a space, transform the ordinary into extraordinary and leave behind the “wow” factor - allowing guests to celebrate within the comfort of their own homes or locations of choice. In other words, the name is a positive play on the saying, “the elephant in the room” – often not talked about, but always there to bring it all together! While ‘pink’ represents the brand’s flamboyant, playful and eccentric spirit, the ‘elephant’ traces back to Ian’s magical African upbringing and the idea that The Pink Elephant’s creative presence is striking and cannot be missed.
In the beginning of 2020, Ian launched The Pink Elephant as a picnic box and grazing platter business, offering three distinctive platter menus - The Signature Safari platter, The Sunrise Brunch and The Sunshine Tea Party. However, as the world entered a total lockdown in March and the brand was unable to personalise events, Ian was forced to pivot his business model to meet COVID restrictions. Thus, he began styling and delivering delicious “contact-free” picnic boxes.
Familiar with the challenges of trying to establish a start-up business in London, Ian decided to support fellow small and local businesses within the UK. Initially working with emerging businesses in the food industry, the exciting growth of the brand has inspired an expansion into the wider hospitality industry. At present, The Pink Elephant proudly supports over 30 small independent businesses in and around the UK
The first small business to collaborate with The Pink Elephant was Tadinka Nougat. Born in Cape Town, South Africa, Tadinka started a business based on family recipes which showcases premium, all natural, melt-in-your-mouth, nougat. The Pink Elephant built a relationship with Tadinka Nougat and began incorporating her delectable sweet treats in the picnic boxes.Throughout the summer, The Pink Elephant continued to grow their base of small businesses, collaborating with chocolatiers, different Spanish & Italian meat suppliers, nut suppliers and various other producers of quality delicatessen type products across the food industry.
The first two years were centred primarily around the brand’s popular grazing platter business. However, towards the end of 2021, Ian saw the opportunity to scale up his existing business model expanding the brand from a business focused on providing grazing platters and picnic boxes for events to an event styling business. This expansion saw an entire relaunch of The Pink Elephant brand, including a fresh logo and website, acquisition of an alcohol licence and the initiation of creating a solid network within the food, beverage, floral and tablescaping industry.
Picture: Event Styling in Lake Kariba, Zimbabwe
At the beginning of 2022, The Pink Elephant introduced three unique event styling packages: Wild is Life, The Shamwari Experience and The Pink Pizzazz. While the packages all differ slightly, they include virtual consultations with The Pink Elephant team, mouth-watering sharing platters, award-winning sustainable wines, bespoke floral arrangements and balloon styling, cocktail stations, children’s mini-boxes, party favours to spoil guests… the list goes on. The sharing platters marry food with art and feature a selection of premium quality products sourced locally from small independent businesses across the UK.
By spring of 2022, The Pink Elephant became a trademarked brand, on the back of which they launched their tablescaping journey. Initially starting out as a hire business, the brand worked with textile designers (other small businesses supported by the brand) to produce napkins and tablecloths which accompanied the event styling packages and which are available for hire on their website. Glassware, silver wine buckets, and beautifully hand-woven table-mats, sourced from The Kenyan Crafts Company, have resulted in The Pink Elephant being able to offer clients a diverse “one stop shop” where clients could hire products on a stand-alone basis or as a part of the event styling packages.
Inspired by the success of the hire business, Ian was compelled to revisit his rationale for creating The Pink Elephant, that being to create the brand’s very own tablescaping merchandise. After months of brainstorming, vision boards and colour pallets, The Pink Elephant launched its online tablescaping shop at the end of last year. The current merchandise includes tablecloths, napkins, tea towels and aprons which are available in three uniquely designed, Africa inspired, styles: Signature Safari, Wild Wonders and African Bloom.
Picture: African Bloom napkin range
The Signature Safari range is most reflective of the brand’s essence. Resonating with The Pink Elephant’s African influences, the table decor is designed with intricate ethnic patterns and, of course, the brand’s signature elephant symbol. Wild Wonders is more exotic in style and suited towards the warmer, summery months. Patterned with pineapples and palm-trees, this range is playful and quirky and evokes a feeling of a tropical paradise. African Bloom is a floral-patterned range and is inspired by some of Africa’s most stunning and national wild flowers: The South African Protea and Zimbabwe’s bold Flame Lily. The Pink Elephant worked tirelessly behind the scenes to create a beautiful and bespoke range of table décor which is suited to every occasion.
Accompanying the launch of the tablescaping shop in the winter of last year, The Pink Elephant also introduced their Festive Hamper. Packaged in gold boxes, the winter hampers contain a deliciously diverse assortment of products sourced locally from the brand’s community of small businesses. The Festive Hampers will be back by popular demand and available for preorder from October this year.
The Pink Elephant has transformed into a thriving, ever-evolving, luxury event styling business within the space of three years. Starting off as a one-person operation, the team has grown considerably and will continue to do so as the brand expands. From digital marketing and branding to event styling, The Pink Elephant is a team of freelancing individuals who are talented and highly skilled within their respective fields.
So, what can one expect from The Pink Elephant in the future? Many exciting things, to say the least. With a focus on events, the brand will be offering various seasonal event styling packages. This range will include their delightful pink Summer Safari picnic boxes, Wimbledon inspired hampers and the launch of their own market stalls which will primarily be selling their tablescaping merchandise. As The Pink Elephant continues to grow, it will be launching packages for larger events, especially including weddings and corporate functions.
The Pink Elephant, flamboyant and charming, offers a unique and luxurious alternative in the world of event styling. Inspired by people, food, colours and stellar entertainment, The Pink Elephant is an up-and-coming force to be reckoned with in the industry. It's bright, it's fabulous, it’s chic, it's classy. It’s all about taking you on the journey of exploring different continents, cultures & cuisines.
Written by: Gemma Parsons