Pink Palms: Here To Modernize Weddings and Diversify the Community Through Design
It’s a mixed blessing when Ashleigh’s wifi connection and mine don’t quite gel at first. The result is a quick and informal tour through her beautifully-appointed home as she goes searching for a hot spot. She’s so bold as to have a room with black painted walls, complimenting high ceilings, natural light and gorgeous, starkly white crown molding. It’s evident that Ashleigh, founder and creator of Pink Palms is all about design and her sensibility for color is a stunner. She’s known for color, naming her business for the hazy LA sunsets that used to be her every day before she and her family returned home to the UK. “I don’t use a riot of color, but color just speaks to who we are—when you look, everything has a color; even neutrals are part of the color spectrum,” she tells me. Upon her homecoming, Ashleigh noticed that wedding design hadn’t found a foothold here in the UK. “Our tagline is here to modernize weddings,” she explains.
“You work with us the way you would work with an interior designer—the house is already built, but we’re painting your walls. We help you design your wedding as a reflection of you—like your home.”
She’s jetting off to Italy for a quick look at an impressive venue the day after our meeting; I ask if there are any limits to where Pink Palms will go to design someone’s wedding and learn that the answer is basically, the ends of the earth. Have wedding design, will travel. Ashleigh’s inspirations include architecture and design and though I don’t expect it, she isn’t necessarily in favor of maximalism to the max. “Minimalism is a huge influence on me. When we’re looking at more luxe, higher-end weddings, currently it goes very ostentatious, but I think there’s a real way artful minimalism can emerge,” she shares. “Our clients are contemporary for sure—[they want] a wedding that looks like a wedding, but feels like them. They step into the wedding world and unfortunately everything is still very traditional and one-size-fits-all and that’s not them,” she says of designing bespoke weddings for each of her clients. Drawn to Pink Palms for their general aesthetic and work ethic, they all find that working with Ashleigh and Co. results in something unique and particular to them as a couple.
“I’m not sure people appreciate that they’re stepping into a whole other world that they didn’t…know exists. I can’t think of any other type of business where you can literally decide to work with a whole group of people that you just ADORE. Recommending other suppliers is the BIGGEST joy,” Ashleigh tells me. “I know people focus on the stress, but it’s such a wonderful experience. People see it as a project, but I wish more people knew how lovely a journey it can be.” She’s also wary about how to invite pandemic couples back into their wedding day; many are fatigued and feel that the experience is tarnished. She wants her couples to feel special again. During lockdown, Pink Palms kept couples connected to their weddings through an online community forged from the delayed hopes of their own clients, as well as other couples who needed somewhere to turn. Though this service has recently come to an end, Pink Palms’s commitment to the wedding community at large is ongoing.
A former cardiothoracic nurse, Ashleigh wants her couples to know: their wedding is in safe and steady hands. “My team laughs—the nurse comes out at some point,” Ashleigh tells me with a grin. She shares a story about building a wheelchair for a grandmother to utilize on the day when its construction stumped the family who had hired it. “You’ll never see me panicking because I’ve dealt with so much worse,” Ashleigh assures me. While her interior design courses have led her to wedding design via a brief stop in the cardio ward, her time as a nurse taught her invaluable communication skills that supersede verbal cues and have no native tongue “…that’s something you get down to a T as a nurse, you eventually pick up tips and tricks along the way to get your message across.” This skill is serving her well as she takes up a new challenges, including building a community-fueled design course geared at small business owners in the weddings world.
“I do think we as independent businesses we still have a lot of work to do in terms of speaking about our value—sometimes the message can be quite fractured I think, so people aren’t necessarily speaking as a community. That’s something Most curious Do really well—speak for the community,” Ashleigh says. She values the independent voices of the suppliers associated with Most Curious, while also appreciating the unity MC provides through wedding fairs and by providing a platform for those independent businesses that are nonetheless part of a bigger network. She’s recently launched SOAR, a program for other weddings and events suppliers to redesign their businesses and make a way for their ideal clients to reach them. “When you own your business you get very stuck on ME! ME! ME! and there’s a disconnect between what the client wants and what you want. SOAR and the design course are there to bring those two things together,” she tells me. I’m intrigued; this isn’t an approach you hear every day. “Even though our businesses are about us, it’s important to bring in our ideal clients. It’s important to see who they are and acknowledge what they want from us.” Concerned that an unchallenged wedding industry will revert back to traditionalism and exclusivity, rather than independent thinking and inclusivity, Ashleigh’s primary goal for SOAR is to encourage other suppliers to use her skills as a project manager to find new ways to cultivate a diverse industry that represents our diverse world.
“If there’s more feedback between a community of independent businesses and consumers, [then] we are able to diversify and represent those who don’t feel represented. If we’re not actively pursuing and seeking the feedback, we won’t receive it. There’s tiny little things we can do that would make the world of difference to people’s experiences in weddings.”
She sees a trend towards small businesses helping people feel more in touch with their own weddings and more included in the process, though I think she speaks for many when she hopes this trend will linger. She also impresses on me the importance of letting go of the idea of a “timeless” wedding, or even looking like a “timeless bride.” She says, “Nothing is timeless, we need to stop painting ourselves as timeless, especially as an industry.” She reminds me that though Princess Diana’s wedding was seen as a spectacle of refined elegance and permanent tastefulness, it can now be viewed for what it was: a wedding of its time. We should appreciate that and embrace the moment we all experience our weddings, rather than look to make choices in the hopes of freezing the experience in an untouchable bubble. Time will have its way, so you might as well have yours!
Her other predictions center around sustainability. She feels a reckoning is due for catering; events-based food waste is a terrible reality at present. She’s eager to see more brands offer recycled gold, foam-free floristry and rentable fashions. We also get a little emotional speaking about more personalized wedding ceremonies; it’s a dawning change, perhaps driven by the pandemic, but people are no longer neglecting this most special experience. She hopes more and more couples will ask her to help personalize this time of unity. “A personalized ceremony brings family and friends in on such a deeper level—instead of watching it, they are feeling it—such a lovely thing to witness,” says Ashleigh.
Of all the beautiful, emotional things we’ve discussed, nothing lights up her face quite like my asking what she’s most looking forward to about her return to the Most Curious Wedding Fair this March 4th-6th. With a huge, happy gasp, she shares, “I think I might cry when I get there! I’ve only exhibited once before, [but] I’ve found home; where I’m supposed to be.” And this year Ashleigh is helping make our “house” (The Truman Brewery) a home for suppliers and couples who want to see a bit of themselves when they first walk through the doors. In Ashleigh’s own words, “Design can be inclusive.” Invited to join Most Curious founder Becky Hoh-Hale in the styling of an installation influenced by the ESEA (that’s East and South East Asian) community, both Ashleigh and Becky are hoping the installation will be a testament to the beauty of inclusive design and the intentions to open the door widely to celebrate the diversity of the Fair’s attendees. Ashleigh’s spouse is British-Born Chinese and together they are raising their half-Chinese daughter to fully embrace her heritage.
The project is to be led by a bad-ass group of British born or based ESEA women and Ashleigh is happily going muck in with her styling prowess on the day. Here’s a little more about the installation from Becky Hoh-Hale has kindly provided some words on the project and its personal meaning. Take it away, Becky!
***
One special installation will appear just as you enter the show. This will hopefully set the tone of a varied and open approach to who the Most Curious’s style-savvy aesthetic is welcoming and celebrating from the get-go.
Much emphasis has been put on the inclusive factor of the show this year, with the collaboration with the MC Coalition, informing us on what constitutes a safe and joyful space for as many people as possible, including the LGBTQIA+ , Non-Binary, Black and brown, Disabled and Neurodivergent communities. We have tried to ensure there is inclusion for all those communities within the space, but when planning this first installation, I stopped for a sec and thought it was a long overdue time for a love letter to the part of my identity I’ve neglected at Most Curious. The ESEA (east and south east asian) side. For me specifically the Malaysian-Chinese half of me!
So here we will have our usual inspiring and conceptual table-scape, but it’s gaze will be centering ESEA communities. Perhaps for those planning a wedding with this identity or interracial couples who have an ESEA element to their story.
We will also have a florist super group of Alright Petal for the florals, also British Malaysian Chinese, alongside two amazing UK-Based Korean floral artists Yinari and Studio KKot, taking the lead on the concept for the design. We are all aiming to show a sense of variety and less one dimensional approach of what a wedding can look like. We’re excited Pink Palms to help with styling on the day and it has a special meaning for her too, as she is part of a Chinese family. Her husband is British Born Chinese, and giving representation and pride for someone like her own daughter’s nuanced identity and heritage in the wedding world is something she also feels is long over due.
The space will showcases some of the coolest ESEA suppliers in the UK. As as well as the florists, it includes Amalina Bakes for the cake, who originally hails from Brunei and Paper goods on the table will be by part-Vietnemese brand Luna & Sol.
***
Join us at the Most Curious Wedding Fair, March 4th-6th, see the installation come to life and meet with Ashleigh and the Pink Palms team. They promise their stand will be colorful and reflective of their curated, celebrated aesthetic. The team is pulling together a very generous offer for those who book with them at Most Curious!
