Events & galas
You arrive at a gala with someone who knows how to move through the room, reads the social temperature, and lets you simply be present. Here's what booking an event companion actually requires.
What the booking covers
An event companion attends with you for the duration of the occasion. Three hours. Five hours. The full evening. You arrange the event itself: the invitation, the table, the ticket. The companion arrives ready to navigate it alongside you: conversation with other guests, knowledge of who tends to be present, comfort with the particular codes of that kind of room.
This is not a date. It's professional company. You're paying for someone experienced enough that you can relax instead of working the room alone, and discreet enough that no one needs to know the arrangement exists. The companion speaks quietly. Blends. Stays beside you without hovering, leaves you to conversations that are yours to have.
The occasions vary. A charity gala in Geneva where Isabelle Laurent, fluent in four languages and trained in private banking, moves between tables as though she has always been part of that particular world. A gallery opening in Berlin on a Wednesday night where Marta Kowalczyk, who came from Kraków and never looked back, knows half the curators personally. An opening at the Palais Garnier in Paris. A corporate dinner in Milan where Sofia Marchetti, trained in fashion buying, carries the evening with warmth and absolute precision. A private dinner in Zurich where Camille Bernard, who moved from Lyon and stayed for the lake, understands that understatement opens more doors than anything else.
The companion is not your partner, but they are your ally in the room.
What you arrange before the night
Send the details early: date, time, venue, dress code, what kind of event. Say whether there's a theme or particular crowd. If you want the companion to know something specific—the names of people you'll introduce them to, a detail about the host—write it down. Two weeks' notice is standard for major galas. Ten days for smaller events.
Discuss logistics plainly. Where you'll meet. Whether the companion travels to you or you meet at the venue. What the evening's shape is: do you attend just the reception, or dinner too. How late it runs. Róisín Doyle, who talks her way through Dublin's best evenings and fills any silence with stories about her enormous family, will ask these questions directly. Answer them.
Confirm the dress code with the companion. Not because they don't know how to dress, they do, but because your version of black-tie or smart casual might carry different expectations than theirs. Freya Lindqvist in Stockholm, who swims in cold water year-round and treats it as an ordinary fact of life, understands this kind of precision.
What discretion means in practice
It means no one you know needs to suspect anything. The companion does not take your arm or match your pace noticeably. They talk when spoken to, ask questions that draw others out, and never indicate they're there in any role other than as a guest who came with you.
It means the companion does not take photographs or post about the event. They do not mention other clients' names. They do not discuss what they observe: the guest list, the conversations overheard, the politics of the room.
It means you don't introduce them with explanation. "This is Sarah" is enough. Their presence requires no narrative.
If someone asks directly how you know each other, the companion handles it. A vague answer: through friends, through work, mutual connection. Practiced and brief. Isabelle Laurent, entirely comfortable in worlds where names are not repeated and conversations stay private, makes this look effortless.
Pay them the day after the event. Tip is discretionary, but generous people who book companions tend to do both. The arrangement ends when they leave your side.
