Vintage China Hire For Weddings

With vintage china now being so popular to hire for your wedding day, I was very keen to meet with the business owner Vicky Osborne from Vintage Tea Sets. I was fascinated to find out just how she created her business from beautiful Vintage China, and what inspired her to do so.

So here is how it all began: I founded Vintage Tea Sets whilst planning my own wedding however my fascination with vintage crockery stemmed from much earlier on, it just lay there dormant before being unleashed on my poor unsuspecting partner and before taking over our lives.

vintage-china-hire-weddings1-990x415As a child I was taken to antique and vintage fairs on the weekends, I used to save my pocket money and look at every stall imagining what the previous owners were like, what they did.  One of the first items I bought when I was eight years old was a wonderful Art Deco Teapot, I’ve still got. it Then there was my grandmother who was a teenager in the 1920s, she continued the fabulous ritual of afternoon tea through her entire life and whenever I stayed with her I’d watch these elegant ladies chatting, drinking tea out of fine bone china cups and sampling wonderful cakes.  These are really fond memories for me and heavily influenced me wanting an afternoon tea wedding reception and of course going on to creating Vintage Tea Sets.

At the risk of sounding a geek, I love collecting and dating the items and can spend hours checking the exact years an item was produced and from which factory it came.  I regularly attend auctions around the country and have a very clear idea of what I want.  Many of the pieces in my collection are Victorian, Edwardian and of course
Art Deco.  The Art Deco are my favourites but are much harder to come by.  I focus predominantly on trio tea sets (Cup, saucer and a side plate that match) with the matching sugar bowls, milk jugs etc.  I also have a large collection of fifties china which is proving very popular with the garden parties and is very kitsch.

What sets Vintage Tea Sets apart is the fact we can provide vintage crockery for a fully authentic vintage era themed wedding or event, it can make a very special day all the more memorable and create a really unique talking point.

I’m also working on a line of bespoke vintage crockery hampers lined with vintage fabric for hire, if this summer is as good as everyone is promising then an afternoon tea picnic would be a lovely wedding idea.