Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s wedding baker sells off ‘vintage’ cafe furniture at regal prices, including a rusting potting table at £400 and battered bistro chairs for £100

One person’s junk is another person’s treasure goes the old saying, and Prince Harry and Meghan Markle‘s wedding baker is certainly testing the adage to its limits.

Californian baking whizz Claire Ptak, who created an elegant elderflower extravaganza for Harry and Meghan’s 2018 nuptials, and also made the couple’s daughter Lilibet’s first birthday cake, revealed this week she’s selling off a selection of cafe furniture from her trendy East End bakery – some of which has been dubbed ‘modern art’ by fans.  

Amongst the bistro tables and chairs available in the ‘bittersweet’ sale at Ptak’s Violet’s Bakery, which has been based in Hackney for more than a decade, is a ‘vintage French potting table’, which comes with a princely price tag of £400 – and plenty of rust. 

Seen better days chic? Amongst the furniture on sale at Claire Ptak’s Violet Bakery in East London is what’s described as a ‘vintage French potting table’ (pictured), with the bowed and rusty table listed at £400 

And these ‘Indian Blue’ bistro chairs are £100 for the pair, as the bakery behind the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s 2018 wedding cake looks to replace its current furniture 

Much of the cream paint has worn off the battered-looking table, with both surfaces slightly bowed. 

Elsewhere, there’s a pair of rickety-looking and rusting ‘Indian Blue’ chairs at £100, and several small zinc top bistro tables on for £400, plus 25 IKEA chairs, also described as ‘vintage’, selling for £18 each. 

The bakery said it was having a clear out after entering into a new partnership which would see the fashionable East End bakery getting new table and chair sets. 

A message on the Violet Cakes Instagram page this week read: ‘Our beloved, vintage zinc and powder coated steel garden bistro furniture is for sale! Priced to go fast!’.

Selling the provenance of the pieces too, the company added that: ‘Books have been written, film scripts edited, paintings painted, wedding proposals made and accepted, businesses conceived and more creative ideas of all kinds formed’ on the furniture.

East London baker Claire Ptak made the couple’s wedding cake in 2018, and was also asked by Harry and Meghan to whip up their daughter Lilibet’s first birthday cake in 2022

‘Vintage’ Ikea chairs are on sale for £18 each, with several zinc top bistro tables, pictured right, are in the offing for £400 each

And fans of the hip bakery were certainly into the idea of owning some of the furniture being sold, with one vintage fan describing the collection as ‘amazing’. 

Another suggested the Indian Blue chairs shouldn’t be sold, writing: ‘You should keep the chairs in the first photo. They’re like a modern art painting.’ 

Ptak has been a popular choice for royal cake making gigs in recent years, and once described the brief given to her by Meghan Markle ahead of her marriage to the Duke of Sussex as the best she’d ever had. 

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s cake used 200 Amalfi lemons, 500 eggs, and 10 bottles of elderflower cordial, and was rumoured to have cost around £50,000 to make

She has now opened up about the process of baking the treats for the Duke and Duchess, revealing how Meghan commissioned her to make the wedding cake

East London baker Claire revealed a snap of a £244 floral two-tier strawberry buttercream cake made for Lilibet’s first birthday

She told Tatler after the 2018 wedding: ‘Meghan, she specifically said to me, “I don’t want to tell you what to do… the reason why I’ve chosen you is because I love your baking and your work and your point of view and your ethos”… and I was like, “oh my god, that’s so cool. The best job brief ever!’ 

The talented baker created six different options for the couple before they landed on the lemon and elderflower option, which used 200 Amalfi lemons, 500 eggs, and 10 bottles of elderflower cordial and was made on the Sandringham estate in Norfolk.

Ptak worked with her team of six bakers full time for five days in the large kitchens of Buckingham Palace ahead of the big day.

Slices of the cake were served to the 600 guests at the lunchtime reception in St George’s Hall and is believed to have cost £80 per slice, with the three-part layered centrepiece rumoured to have cost up to £50,000 to make.