The Tamesis
In retrospect, it’s almost unthinkable that Oda Wong and Robin Scott Lawson could have gotten married in either Hydra or Scotland, their original intended destinations. As the couple puts it, their London wedding – held at Painting Rooms, home of Scott-Lawson creative event production company My Beautiful City and 180 the Strand – was so determined them. “Our love story is here,” says Robin, who first met the artist Oda at one of her exhibition openings.
“I didn’t really notice him at the time,” Oda joked, before continuing: “I remember the first time I real Saw him – I couldn’t even remember the place, I just thought, I can’t look him in the eyes anymore and I’m going to wait for him to get close to me. During the pandemic, Robin finally made her move. Oda moved from Paris to London to be closer to her daughter, who was studying fashion at Central Saint Martins. Suddenly, she was locked into someone’s phone number: Robin. The stranger offered her his studio to paint.
“I spent hours, weeks, months dreaming,” Oda says of her largest work to date: a 32-foot-long work titled Tree, 2021Robin, who retreated to the country, saw his growth bit by bit when he went to the city with his mother to see a doctor in the hospital. “In the time of COVID, it was really love,” Robin recalled. “It was very beautiful, very quiet, no distractions.” Both men believe they might not have connected in the same way if the world hadn’t stopped spinning.
The proposal came while the couple was in Venice for the Biennale. As they party in the pouring rain, soaking wet, they sneak into a pop-up club and lose themselves on the dance floor. “Will you marry me?” Robin shouted over the music. No font The ring was soaked, but it was nice to see a “Yes!” come back in response. Later, Robin delivers an engagement ring while on a trip to the jungles of India.
Back in London, the pair kept all their ideas for the celebration secret and set out to create a wedding that reflected their imagination and creativity, giving themselves the freedom to dream big. Finally, they invited their inner circle to a slumber party. “We thought about how kids feel when they don’t want to sleep the night before something big happens — like a birthday or Christmas,” Oda said. “They are so tired that they confuse reality with dreams.”
Phase one: transforming the studio into three different spaces. The first: a cocktail party that looks like an anatomy of a bedroom, where guests in “the most glamorous nightgown” can gather around sleep-related ephemera. Second: a 50-foot-long table that looks like a bed, with Oda and Robin at the head, wearing retro pink petticoats and Harvey and Hudson pajamas respectively, with a “dream” banquet in front of them. “Everyone was in a state of hysteria,” they recall of the grand unveiling, but it didn’t last long as Third Space opened the “Ultimate Pillow Fight Room,” backed by opera singer Ellie Edmonds and accompanied by Milo MacKinnon. “You can’t see it, it’s so white,” Oda said, with Robin adding: “We’ll be looking for feathers for the next 20 years.”
