I Attended Raschel, an Oldschool Tea Party │ Coords

This blog is very picture heavy, make sure to scroll to the very end!!

On the 29th of August Raschel, the first oldschool themed tea party, was held at The Dukes hotel in London. It was all organised by Alice (troubleinthemessagecentre), though myself and several others were part of the staff to help out if needed.

These 2 were taken by Lucy on Kath's camera

The event started at 1:30pm; attendees were directed down stairs to a private room, were offered some hand sanitiser (that was my job hehe) and were invited to leave bags or parasols in the cloak room before being shown to their seat. Each attendee had a set table based on their dietary requirements. At each place there was a tote bag, brooch and raffle tickets, and at the centre of each table was a Gothic Lolita Bible from Alice's personal collection for guests to read if they wanted.

Taken by Lucy

Once everyone had arrived, Alice welcomed us and explained the order in which everything would be happening, and thanked us for being able to make it despite the pandemic making things more difficult. The welcome speech definitely helped set a relaxed casual and fun tone to the afternoon!

Soon after the afternoon tea was served; my own table had both vegan and vegetarian afternoon teas. While the non-vegan afternoon teas were served all at once on tiers, the vegan ones were served one at a time. The vegan afternoon tea was lovely; for sandwiches there was avocado & hummus, vegan cheese & chutney, fancy vegan coleslaw, and (what I think was) olive tapenade and cucumber. 

Once we were finished our sandwiches, a lady came and served us 2 scones each, one plain and one with fruit. I only ate half of each as the vegan cream was very sweet and I didn't want to be too full for the final plate. We were next served cakes to choose from that looked incredibly delicious. I was only able to eat 2 of the 4 in the selection: a mini berry muffin and a ginger panna cotta thing which was delicious as it wasn't too sweet, a nice little palette refresher. 

The servers also brought out trays of brownies for us, though I think most were too full at that point so they wrapped them up for us to take home. Throughout the event our tea cups would be refilled constantly without us even having to ask!

These 3 are from my film camera

While we ate and took breaks from eating, we also mingled, chatted, and took many photos. Once we were mostly finished Alice announced it was time for the raffle. During the afternoon tea we were to place our raffle tickets in the cup for whichever items we wanted. There were some amazing prizes to be won including brand pieces! From memory you could win jewellery from Curiosity Cabinet Creations, original Kamikaze Girls phone charms, an original Kamikaze Girls poster, the Kamikaze Girls soundtrack on CD, a BTSSB handbag, a very tiny Usakumya, a black IW skirt, Shirring Princess by BTSSB, an Innocent World JSK, a Metamorphose bouquet blouse, and 2 £100 vouchers for R.R.Memorandum. I won the Kamikaze Girls poster. Lucy and Katherine (onlyfrillsandhorses) both won big burando prizes.. I'm totally not jealous (T ^ T).

Katherine took an instax of her raffle win, a Metamorphose blouse!

Once more we were able to mingle and take many photos. I brought my film camera, as I thought it would be fun to get mostly film pictures for an oldschool event. So many people had lovely coords, I wish I'd gotten even more pics with/of people than I did. Alice also brought her film camera to take 1 coord picture of everyone who wanted it. 

We then headed outside to get the big group photo of all of us. Several of us handed our cameras to Alice so she could take pictures on all of our cameras. Unfortunately for us a man rudely stopped his car just to photograph us (despite us being in a very out of the way corner without many passers by). When asked to stop he continued to argue for a ridiculous amount of time which culminated in us going back inside and a hotel staff member going to talk to him. 

Alice with many cameras around her neck

Taken on my film camera

Taken on Kath's camera

The event didn't end on a low note though. We were able to get group photos outside on my camera and one other person's. We then returned inside and got some group photos indoors too. After much more chatting and photo taking with various people it was time for us all to leave. It was so lovely to meet everyone and see my online friends irl. Some of us were having too much fun to just go back to our hotels (or wherever), so we headed to a bar for a little after party. I didn't go too crazy as London drink prices are insane (or at least the bar we chose lol) and I couldn't be hungover the next day as I'd be travelling, but it was nice to chat some more with people~

Keep scrolling because below you can see the rest (and best) of the many photos as well as my coord!

Coord photos

I had recently bought this set and was very excited to wear it. It was the perfect amount of OTT for an oldschool tea party! The blouse was a bit big for me so I got corset lacing added to the back so it's now adjustable in size.

I hate that I didn't notice my detachable collar was wonky before taking my coord pics. It's wonky in like all my photos because it's so big it would just constantly migrate to the side = A =;;

Headdress - Metamorphose Temps de Fille

Wig - Maple

Blouse - Good Luck

Skirt - Good Luck

Tights - Offbrand

Bags - Metamorphose Temps de Fille

Socks - Metamorphose  Temps de Fille

Shoes - Antaina

Jewellery - Offbrand

The collar is even wonky in my selfie lmao

Film photos

These are all from my own film camera~

Lucy and I with our matching Meta bear bags

Myself and Rachael had to get some photos together because our coords went together so well!

Myself, Alice & Melwiin

Me, Alice, Beccy, Kath & Lucy
Gobelin goblins >:)

Alice & I

Olive & Alice

I tried to get a photo of every table but missed 2 as people were constantly up & about

Everyone except Alice because she took the photo :(

Edit: I've added some that Alice took either because they're of the tables I didn't photograph, they were just more nice candids, or they have me in them! All the film ones below are Alice's photos from her film camera

Edit 2: I'm also adding a few that Becy took with her film camera for the same reasons, The ones below are her photos~

Its cool to see the same photo with a different film

Edit 3: The black and white photos below were taken by Alice with her camera (tall vampire Alice not Meta set Alice)

Digital photos

Lucy got this cute candid of myself and Rachael chatting

Candids of me & Emily (emilyinferi) chatting

The photos above were taken on Katherine's camera, the ones below were taken on my digital camera~

Lou, Kath, Lucy and me~

And the ones below are from my phone~

When ur taking selfies and a vampire shows up

This was a very cute candid I got of Rachael

Instax photos

Melwiin took the above instax of me and kindly let me keep it! The ones below are all Katherine's

Everyone's coords were lovely and it was so nice to attend an event where everyone was in oldschool! It was also so nice to meet everyone <3

Raschel 2021 was a success, and we have high hopes that next year there will be another.