Black tie and company dinners, a plus one who reads the room
A room where you will be introduced twenty times in an hour is a particular kind of work, and walking into it alone is harder than it looks. A companion at one of these is not decoration. She is somebody who can hold a conversation with a stranger for six minutes, hand it back to you gracefully and remember the name afterwards, which is a skill rather than an accident.
Most of these are the four hour dinner date at £900, since a reception and a dinner rarely finish inside three. Three hours at £700 covers a drinks reception on its own. She is briefed before the doors open on who you are meeting, what you would rather not discuss and how you would like to be introduced, and nothing about the arrangement is anybody's business inside the room.
Suited to black tie and company dinners
The brief, and why it matters
Send the occasion, the dress, the hour and two or three lines about the room. If there is a name you need to avoid, say so. If your own company is hosting, say that too, because it changes how she answers a polite question about how the two of you know each other. A good brief is four sentences long and makes the difference between a plus one and a companion who is genuinely useful to you for an evening.
How the evening runs
For a reception at seven she meets you at half past six a street or two away, so that the two of you walk in together already talking rather than finding each other across a crowded room. The first hour is introductions, and she takes half of them off your hands. Dinner is seated by eight, the speeches fill the long middle of it, and she is as good at listening to a poor one as a good one. The last hour, once people start moving between tables, is where she is most useful, because that is when the conversations you actually came for tend to happen.
Where these rooms are
Euston and the hotels along its road take more corporate dinners than anywhere else on this map, and they are a minute from the platforms for the half of the table that arrived by train.
West of there, the terraces and garden rooms around Regent's Park hold the summer version of the same evening, and the park empties within a few minutes once the gates are behind you, which makes for a quieter exit than the West End has ever managed.
Who carries a room well
Karolina is formal, dryly funny after twenty minutes and entirely comfortable arriving before everybody else. Violetta speaks sparingly and well, which is worth a great deal at a long table. Milena is interested in the actual answer and unimpressed by a clever one. Patricia is thoughtful and unhurried in a room that is neither, and Margo has an editor's precision and a sense of timing that only shows up once everybody has relaxed.
Dress, and getting it right
Say what the invitation says, in the invitation's own words, and she will match it rather than guess at it. Black tie, lounge suits, a summer garden party and a drinks reception in an office are four different evenings, and the women here dress for the building rather than for a lens. If you would rather she arrived separately and met you inside, that is arranged as easily as arriving together.
Notice and confirmation
A week for anything with a date printed on an invitation, a few days for a client dinner. The desk confirms the companion, the hour, the length and the total in one message, and nothing about it changes afterwards. The rates page carries the ladder, the booking page the five steps, and the whole list is available for an event unless a profile says she is away.
Two sheets worth reading first
Black tie and company dinners, in detail
What will she say if somebody asks how we met?
Whatever the two of you agreed beforehand. Give her one plausible line in the brief and she will hold it all evening without embellishing it.
Do I need the four hour booking?
For a reception and a dinner together, yes, because they rarely finish inside three. Drinks on their own often fit comfortably in three hours at £700.
Can she arrive separately?
Easily. Tell the desk where to meet you inside and she will be there on the hour rather than at the door beside you.
How much notice does an event need?
A week when the date is printed on an invitation. A client dinner arranged on a Tuesday for the Thursday is usually fine, particularly near the stations.
Is any of this discussed in the room?
Never, by her or by us. How you know each other is a matter of one agreed sentence, and nothing beyond it is ever volunteered.
How much should she know about my work?
Enough to sound like somebody who has heard you talk about it: what the firm does, roughly what you do there, and one or two names she is likely to hear. Nothing confidential is needed and she will not ask for it.
What if the dinner runs past four hours?
Awards dinners often do. Ask as the speeches begin rather than as the cars arrive and the extra length is quoted before it starts, and if the rest of her night allows it the answer is usually yes.
Other evenings we set up
The sign stays lit
Give the desk an hour and a street, and the rest of the night is arranged quietly, anywhere from the lock at Camden to the Broadway on the ridge.