Two of the most iconic addresses in the city: The Savoy and The Chancery Rosewood. And an unmistakable creative force running through all of it. The Table Design Exhibition, in a special London edition staged in collaboration with the RSVP Club, arrived at The Savoy with something to prove, and proved it magnificently. By the time the RSVP Gala & Awards Night came to a close at The Chancery Rosewood, I found myself quietly certain I'd witnessed a genuinely landmark moment for our industry.
A weekend that left me with a shift in how I see the world. London, you were fantastic. Tomas De Bruyne invited me to attend the award evening from RSVP, the same place where he would launch his new book: The Art of Design. Surreal it was. Together with his team, he brought everyone stepping into the room in awe. Together with many people I call friends, like Bart Bresser, Frank Timmerman, Cock Van Der Hoorn, Cindy Cooper, the people from Parfum Flower Company, Nadia Duran, Pascal Matla, Decorum, Smithers - Oasis, his family and friends, Meltem Tepeler and her family, I got to enjoy this evening.
Let me try to take you there.
A Table Is Never Just a Table – The Savoy, London
The Table Design Exhibition has always understood something that the wider events world is only beginning to articulate: the table is a canvas. Recognized as the world's first and only international Table Design Exhibition, it has toured Istanbul and built a devoted following among the global luxury wedding and hospitality community. But London felt like a new chapter, deliberately so.
For this Special Edition, each designer was given a master of art as their brief. Van Gogh. Yayoi Kusama. Matisse. Botticelli. Raffaele Monti. The task was not imitation: it was translation. How do you take a painter's obsession with light, or a sculptor's conversation with marble, and render it in linen, crystal, flower, and flame?
Walking through the exhibition at The Savoy was an exercise in slowing down. I found myself stopping at Katya Hutter's Botticelli-inspired table for longer than I expected. There was something in the layering of color and the arrangement of organic elements that felt genuinely painterly. And I love Butterfly Ranunculus, Clooneys, and Lathyrus... so it was hard not to fall in love. Katya's style is so delicate yet strong, and every detail is taken into account. From the way a flower is placed to the art piece as backdrop, the plates, and the handwritten signs. Beautiful....
Johnny Roxburgh and Paula Rooney's contribution had an entirely different energy: theatrical, knowing, full of wit. And the translation of Van Gogh in flowers....the vibe was wonderful. Every table was a conversation, and together they formed a dialogue between centuries.
The London edition is more than an exhibition. It is a curated international platform for the luxury wedding and events industry; a selective, strategic meeting point where beauty and business sit at the same table.
The April 12th symposium brought the business dimension into focus. Senior hospitality executives, global event planners, destination specialists: the room at The Savoy had a different quality of conversation from the kind you get at a standard industry conference. With a limited-attendance model and a strong B2B emphasis, the format felt intentional rather than accidental. These were people who had come specifically to connect; speakers gave interesting talks.
Inside the Idea of Toni Breiss – I Had the Privilege of Listening to His Stage Talk
Toni Breiss took Richard Serra as her starting point, and that choice said everything. Serra doesn't make sculptures you look at. He makes sculptures you move through, and in moving through them, you lose your bearings most beautifully. That is exactly what Toni brought to the table: the conviction that design is not decoration but experience, and that experience, at its best, pulls you briefly out of real life and into something that feels larger than it.
His philosophy is quietly radical. An event needs a soul. A soul needs an experience. And an experience needs every single element to be considered, connected, and alive.
"You don't move through the event - the event moves you."
Each wedding he creates is a unique story, told once, never repeated.
An Evening That Earned Its Title - The Chancery Rosewood
If the days at The Savoy were about looking closely and thinking carefully, the RSVP Gala & Awards Night at The Chancery Rosewood was about feeling it. The hotel is a spectacular setting, all considered grandeur and quiet confidence, and the evening matched it. Bigtime! I'm overjoyed that I was there. All my expectations were answered. I have known Tomas De Bruyne for a long time already; he's my friend, but I also look up to what he has achieved so far, and what he brings to our industry.
The RSVP Club, founded by James Lord, has built its reputation on championing the people behind the most memorable luxury events in the world. An awards evening, in the right hands, can feel like a genuine celebration of a community rather than a self-congratulatory exercise. This was the right hand. There was warmth in the room that no production budget alone can manufacture.
But there was something else in the room too, something that had been designed into it with great deliberateness. Tomas De Bruyne's floral scenography filled the space in a way I find difficult to describe without reaching for overstatement. It wasn't decoration. It was an atmosphere. It was architecture built from flowers, light, and the kind of spatial intelligence that comes from decades of working at the absolute top of this craft. The room felt held by it.
Tomas De Bruyne & The Art of Design: A Book and a Belief
And then came the moment that, for me, made the evening complete.
In partnership with event planner Nadia Duran and the RSVP Club, Tomas De Bruyne formally launched The Art of Design – his long-awaited book, published by Pelckmans Uitgevers. It had first been announced at the Table Design Exhibition in Istanbul, during Tomas's panel on 'Sustainable Success Through Connection'. At that moment, he said, it was about establishing a shared belief: that beauty gains meaning through collaboration, not isolation.
The Chancery Rosewood felt like exactly the right place to bring it into the world. Surrounded by the floral scenography he had created with his team, Tomas talked about what the book is, and what it isn't. It is not a manual. It does not offer formulas to copy. Instead, it lays out the underlying structure of design thinking that has defined his career: principles of harmony, balance, tension, rhythm, contrast, and connection, explored through the lens of someone who has spent decades creating worlds from ephemeral material.
"Why did I choose Tomas to partner with for RSVP's Awards Gala and the launch of his book?"
James Lord asked the room. He paused.
"A better question is: is Tomas the most talented floral designer in the world? Well, he's definitely in the top one."
The room laughed. And then it settled into something more quiet and genuine, because everyone there understood that the joke contained an entirely sincere truth.
What struck me most about the book launch wasn't the book itself, but the clarity of Tomas's conviction about what design is for. He works, he says, with an ephemeral medium to create lasting emotions. The flowers will fade. The room will be cleared. But the experience, the feeling of having been held inside something beautiful, stays. I could only buy the book; there was no other possible option. And wauw, IT IS FANTASTIC! Tomas signed it, I'm happy.
That, really, is what the entire weekend at The Savoy and The Chancery Rosewood was about.
I've covered a great many events in this industry. I leave most of them with notes, photographs, and a sense of having documented and lived great events, but this... I left London this week with something harder to file: the distinct feeling of having been reminded why this work matters. Beauty, when it is pursued with real intelligence and genuine generosity, is not a luxury. It is a language. And London, for three days in April, spoke it fluently.
