When Alice May noticed a trend in perfectly-styled picnics popping up on Instagram, she decided that was her calling.
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About 18 months ago, she left behind her career as a visual merchandiser for Myer to create her own event styling and luxury table-grazing catering business, Miss Mays Picnics.
“I was at the point where I didn’t want to spend another Christmas in retail, but I still loved being visual and creative,” says May, who is based in Swansea.
“My fiancee Max [Gough] and I had picked up on the picnic idea from Instagram – there’s a fair bit of it happening in places like Brisbane and Byron Bay, but nobody else seemed to be doing it in Newcastle.”
Originally she only wanted to offer styling for picnics, but it was Gough who convinced her to take on the catering side of things, too.
“It has just boomed from there,” May says.
“We started off doing date nights – a two-person picnic – and now it has extended to doing baby showers, hens days and birthdays.”
Miss Mays Picnics hosted its biggest event earlier this month at Redhead Beach for Newcastle-based Instagram “influencer” Sjana Earp. The yoga expert and healthy lifestyle advocate invited 120 of her fans to join her in the dunes for a vegan-friendly beachside feast.
Earp posted photos of the event on Instagram, spreading the word to her 1.6 million followers. The pictures attracted 100,000 ‘likes’ and 700 comments.
“Instagram has been huge for us,” Gough says.
“It’s the reason the business has grown so quickly, I believe. It’s such a visual business as it is, so having that medium to be able to display our photos and have our clients basically advertise for us – because everyone that has a picnic loves to take photos and share them with friends and then it spreads like crazy – has worked for us. It has been a lot of word-of-mouth.”
Since launching in late 2017, Miss Mays Picnics has created hundreds of picnic events, including about 30 romantic wedding proposals. Their own Instagram account has just shy of 15,000 followers.
The larger picnic events are typically boho-themed (other styles, such as tropical, can also be arranged) and beautifully styled with Persian rugs, oversized floor cushions and Moroccan-style lamps, with a wicker peacock chair as the centrepiece at the head of a decadent smorgasbord of finger food.
There is no cooking involved as the catering provided is Mediterranean-focused with sliced Italian meats, stuffed peppers, olives, cheese and breads, along with fresh fruit and sweet treats.
Gough says they are booked solid for weekends until August, but picnics can also be booked mid-week, too.
They have already taken bookings for events in 2020 and are setting up, on average, eight events every weekend in either Newcastle, Lake Macquarie, the Hunter Valley, the Central Coast, Port Stephens and, on occasion, Sydney.
Perhaps the craziest part is that May and Gough run the entire enterprise on their own.
“It is just the two of us doing it all. It’s just been us since the start,” Gough says.
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May invested her house deposit on inventory for the business when she started out. She stores the growing collection of rugs, lanterns and peacock chairs in the garage at her mother’s house where her and Gough are living while the business gets off the ground.
Miss Mays Picnics have also created elaborate grazing tables for weddings and it’s a market that May hopes to eventually branch into by offering complete styling for wedding events, too.
Gough, who is a carpenter by trade, recently left his job to work on Miss Mays Picnics full-time to cope with the growing demands of the business.
“We’ve decided that we are busy enough. Alice just needs me. It’s great because we get to work together and spend more time together,” Gough says.
“I worked literally seven days a week last year and probably 85 hours a week between my other job and the picnic business. I had two days off all year. My background is as a carpenter, so I built a lot of the furniture for her, like the tables and that sort of thing.
“We are a match made in heaven for that really – she has a good visual eye and I am able to help build things and do all the heavy lifting.”
The couple got engaged last year on Redhead Beach. When Gough decided to propose, he knew that he couldn’t do it any other way but with a romantic picnic.
“I actually tricked her,” Gough explains.
“We were just beginning to establish the business and I told her we should go down to the beach, and practise setting up a picnic and take some really nice photos. Then I proposed to her. We had the candles and the lanterns all set up, so it was very nice.”
Events are usually held outdoors, in a park, or the comfort of a backyard.
“In the whole time we have been running it, we have only had one cancellation due to the weather,” Gough says.
“We were actually quite worried when we started the business because the first event we set up, it bucketed down rain. We were like ‘Wow, this is a great start!’ [laughs].’’
