Chelsea Flower Shower 2023; as King Charles is set to attend the event, who is Manoj Malde?

I have been lucky enough to visit the Chelsea Flower Show and there is something so utterly wonderful and iconic about the event that is entrenched in London’s seasonal social calendar. So, when I heard that it is to host the first ever wedding in the show’s history today, I thought how utterly magical it would be for the couple involved. 

The couple in question is award winning garden designer Manoj Malde and his partner Clive Gilmor. What makes the wedding even more special (aside from being the first ever at the Chelsea Flower Show) is that they will be getting married in the very garden that Manoj designed. 

Although as expected groom Manoj Malde would naturally have been keen to get an early night before his big day, I was lucky enough to grab a few words with him and he exclusively told me how his wedding came about. “When I created my garden, ‘Beneath a Mexican Sky in 2017,’ my partner had approached the RHS for us to get married in the garden, but the time was too short,” he revealed. When I was approached by the RHS to design this garden, at the end of our meeting, I asked them if we could marry in the garden and they were delighted.”

House Beautiful revealed that Manoj’s garden, “The RHS and Eastern Eye Garden of Unity will have accessibility features, including bright posts with sentences in braille, as well as emphasis on sustainability (from peat-free planting to the use of reclaimed materials) and drought-resistant planting. 

According to the RHS, “Manoj Malde was made an RHS Ambassador at RHS Chelsea 2022, with the task of looking into how the Society can ensure it is open and appealing to all. Manoj revealed that “It’s really important that people know the RHS isn’t just about their shows and gardens, it also does a lot in the community, then people will begin to understand that it’s not elitist.”

At the time of writing, King Charles and Queen Camilla were due to attend the Chelsea Flower Show 2023.