Bookings by Occasion · Extended booking companionship
Weekends and the Season: one companion for Ascot, Henley and the long stay
The London Season never quite ended; it simply stopped announcing itself. Between the Chelsea Flower Show in May and the close of Glorious Goodwood at the start of August, the calendar still fills with racing, rowing, tennis and opera, and Mayfair's hotels fill with the people who attend them. This is the occasion for those weeks, and for any stay that deserves more than an evening.
A weekend together starts from £6,000, and Cressida gives a single figure for anything longer once the dates are known. That figure is the one you pay.
At 20:00
The occasion
Arranged around the evening you describe, never around a menu of extras.
Who suits Weekends and the Season
4 companions Cressida would propose first for an evening like this. Everyone else on the roster may be asked as well.
Three shapes of a longer booking
Extended bookings tend to take one of three forms, and the right one depends more on your diary than on hers.
A calendar for the summer
May brings the Chelsea Flower Show and the first opera picnics on the lawns at Glyndebourne. June belongs to the Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy and to Royal Ascot, where the Royal Enclosure keeps a strict dress code and admission rules of its own. Wimbledon runs from the end of June into July, Henley Royal Regatta arrives early in July with blazers and a firm hemline in the Stewards' Enclosure, and Goodwood closes the summer.
The After Dark Notes plan the three hour dinner course by course, a natural anchor for a weekend spent in town.
Dressing for the Season
A Season week asks more of a wardrobe than any other booking: a formal day dress and a hat for Ascot, a frock that sits happily beside blazers at Henley, black tie for Glyndebourne, something easy for the train home. Tell Cressida the fixtures as soon as you know them, so that your companion can plan her clothes as carefully as you plan the tickets.
Tickets, badges and hotel rooms
Enclosure badges, tickets and tables are arranged by you, in her name as well as yours where an event asks for both; the Society neither buys nor holds them. The hotel for a London weekend is yours to book too. Many guests choose somewhere on Park Lane or along Piccadilly, so that a day at the races ends a short drive from dinner. Journeys beyond Zone 2 are folded into the quote, which remains one figure. Hospitality boxes at Ascot and Wimbledon usually ask for every guest's name in advance; give Cressida the deadline and she will confirm how your companion should be listed.
Companions for a long stay
The best companion for several days is one with interests of her own. Laura grew up around horses and follows the racing properly, which makes her the natural choice for Ascot or Goodwood. Cindy sails, so Cowes Week in August or a weekend on the coast is home ground to her. Liana, a patient gardener, would rather spend a morning at the Chelsea Flower Show than any afternoon at a racecourse. Karolina knows her operas as other people know their favourite novels, and Glyndebourne is her idea of a perfect Saturday. All four are listed among the companions in their late twenties.
The series, in practice
For a long stay, a series can be as regular or as loose as your work allows: two fixed evenings a week, perhaps, and a third held open for whenever a meeting finishes early. Cressida keeps the whole plan in one thread, so moving Thursday never disturbs Tuesday.
Planning, and the single figure
Raise a weekend at least a week ahead if you can; for Ascot or Wimbledon, a month is wiser, since the calendar that fills the hotels fills companions' diaries as well. Cressida returns one figure covering the time and any journeys beyond Zone 2, and confirms nothing until you have accepted it. For a series of evenings, each is written into the thread as it is agreed, at the lengths printed on the rates page.
Regular guests often move from a series to a fixed evening each week. Cressida keeps the same table and the same hour, and the corner table in the After Dark Notes explains why the seat matters.
Weekends and the Season, asked
Yes, as a series of evenings or, with a companion who would like it, as a continuous stay. Cressida quotes it once the dates and the shape are clear.
For anything longer than one night, most companions prefer one, somewhere to change and rest between engagements. Cressida will tell you when you write.
Yes. Paris, the Riviera or a lake in the Alps are all possible, planned as for any travel booking. You book her journey, and she agrees the destination before anything is fixed.
The time is yours whatever the sky does. A rained-off afternoon at Henley becomes a long lunch indoors, and the figure stays as quoted.
Not at all. A winter weekend of galleries, long lunches and early nights is just as good, and the hotels are quieter.
Notes for the occasion
- 6 min readAround the old embassy square: Grosvenor Square's hotels, weighed after darkThe square once called Little America now deals in hotels. The Biltmore, The Beaumont, The Twenty Two and their neighbours, judged by lobby, bar and lift for an evening in W1K.
- 5 min readBehind the unmarked doors: guests, limits and manners at Mayfair's members' clubsAnnabel's, Mark's, Harry's Bar, George, 5 Hertford Street, The Arts Club: how a guest is signed in, how many a member may bring, and the codes kept behind Mayfair's unmarked doors.
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Weekends and the Season, arranged
Tell Cressida what the occasion is, what to wear and when it begins. She proposes companions who suit it and settles the rest in one thread.