Ginger Ray

Ginger Ray – A Gap Became a Brand. A Brand Became Memories.

Two countries, one idea, one summer. In 2012, Ben Spence in Great Britain and his business partner in South Africa begin simultaneously building a brand that does not yet exist. The starting point is concrete: South Africa lacks a range of affordable, high-quality party products with genuine design ambition. What exists is expensive, mediocre, or both. The question occupying the founding team is simple and precise: why should wedding decoration look cheap just because it should not cost a fortune?

Ginger Ray is founded as the answer to this question. The name is deliberately chosen: light, cheerful, memorable – a name that suits a company supplying parties while wanting to radiate joy itself. From the outset, one rule applies: all designs are developed in-house. No outsourcing, no purchasing ready-made collections. The in-house design team is responsible for everything – from the first sketch to the finished product.

Milton Keynes and the Road to 600 Retailers Worldwide

The British headquarters in Milton Keynes becomes the nerve centre of the brand. From here, products are developed, manufactured and fed into a retail channel that quickly expands beyond Great Britain. Within a few years, Ginger Ray is present in over 600 retail outlets worldwide – from large department store chains to independent specialist retailers. At the time of the acquisition by Amscan International in 2021, the company with 30 employees generates an annual turnover of £20 million sterling. A figure that makes the growth tangible: from zero to an established international brand in nine years.

The acquisition by Amscan International – one of the world's largest party goods groups – gives Ginger Ray access to a global distribution and e-commerce network. Ben Spence, who continued leading the brand as managing director after the acquisition, left the company in 2024 after twelve years. What remains: a design team carrying the brand identity and a range that is consistently developed further.

Design as Brand Core – What That Means in Practice

Ginger Ray is not a brand that purchases products and attaches its own label. The in-house design team develops every collection from scratch – with an eye on current trends in the events and wedding industry, on the season's colour palettes and on the question of which occasions are not yet adequately served. The result is product lines that are thematically coherent: those who choose a collection for an occasion find bunting, balloons, table decorations, photo booth accessories and party ware in the same design and the same colour scheme.

This consistency is not a given in craft terms. It requires a development logic that keeps the overall picture of a celebration in view – not just individual products. A balloon in the wrong tone, a paper plate in a colour scheme that only approximately matches the bunting: it shows in photos and in memories. Ginger Ray avoids this through a production process in which all elements of a collection are developed by the same team with the same colour palette and the same aesthetic standard. Materials are optimised for single use: light, easy to assemble, but with a surface quality that holds up in photos. Balloons in rich, full colour, bunting that hangs straight, paper plates that look the same after the party as before. These details are the reason Ginger Ray has built a loyal customer base that returns to the brand for every new occasion.

The Range – for Every Occasion, at Every Moment in Life

The Ginger Ray range is organised around occasions, not product categories. Weddings are served continuously from engagement to evening: hen party accessories with sashes, team bride items and photo booth props; ceremony decoration with lanterns, paper rosettes and chair tags; table design with candle holders, paper plates and napkins in coordinated designs; photo booth setups with backdrop curtains and dressing-up accessories; guest books in various formats.

Birthday parties, baby showers, christenings and seasonal celebrations for Christmas, Halloween, Easter and further occasions follow the same principle: thematically coherent collections covering the complete decoration needs of a celebration. Across all occasions: bunting and pennant chains, balloons in various shapes and colours, candle holders, photo booth accessories, signs and direction markers, and party accessories for the celebrants themselves. The range grows annually – driven by the in-house design team that spots trends early and translates them into concrete products.

Product Range at a Glance

Bunting & pennant chains · Balloons · Photo booth accessories · Table decorations · Wedding accessories · Candle holders · Napkins & paper plates · Party accessories

Ginger Ray at miniSchoggi

A celebration does not succeed through a single product. It succeeds when everything fits together – when the colour scheme is right, when the table matches the bunting, the bunting matches the balloon, when the photo booth looks so inviting that guests spontaneously step into it. That is not a question of budget but of design coherence. And this coherence is precisely what sets Ginger Ray apart from party supplies assembled from various random sources.

miniSchoggi carries Ginger Ray because the range is designed for occasions where decoration is not a side note but part of the experience. A wedding that will still hang as a photograph on the wall in twenty years deserves more than standard party supplies. A hen party that creates memories rather than merely filling hours needs accessories that invite laughter and photography. A baby shower that genuinely honours the mother-to-be lives in the details that show someone thought it through. Ginger Ray delivers precisely these details – in a quality and a design coherence felt when hanging the bunting and still visible when leafing through the photos afterwards.

The Ginger Ray range available at miniSchoggi includes bunting, wedding party accessories, photo booth accessories, napkins, paper plates, candle holders, balloons and further party supplies for various occasions. It is aimed at everyone who celebrates – for small and large occasions, for weddings and birthdays, for spontaneous gatherings and carefully planned events. The range grows continuously, because Ginger Ray develops new collections every year and because no celebration is like another.

2012. Milton Keynes and South Africa simultaneously. For celebrations that remain in memory. Ginger Ray.