![]() She offered no further details over the phone, insisting that we come uptown to her apartment so she could properly convey the scale of the conundrum. I once got a call from a woman in a panic: Her daughter was getting married in a few weeks and she needed my partner and me to save this wedding. I wish we could find some homeless people to stay here when we’re done.” ![]() Months later, the same mother, while admiring the tent we had spent days erecting for the reception, said, in total seriousness, “I hate that it’s only being used for one night. I couldn’t say a thing, but finally her mother reached her limit: “We’re rich!” she cried out in exasperation. Was the liner worth more than a Wassily chair? She went back and forth, back and forth. She and the groom had been given a seven-figure sum to spend both on their wedding and on buying and decorating their new home, and the bride had a thing for mid-century-modern furniture. The bride was stressing about putting a custom lining on her invitations that would add another couple thousand to the already large stationery bill. They probably had several.Ī few years after the recession, I did a lavish wedding on Long Island. I would have to explain that my clients didn’t need a house. “Don’t they realize they could have bought a house with all of this money?” ![]() Unfortunately, this only added to the confusion. “See,” I would say, pointing to a dreamy sailcloth tent glowing with custom-made chandeliers. So whenever one of our events was featured in a bridal magazine, I would bring it to family occasions and show it off the way other people might show off pictures of their babies. Read: The uncontrollable rise of wedding sprawl Had I chosen to be a professional mud wrestler, I do not think it could have confounded them more. “ How complicated could a wedding be?” they wondered. People would shout out what sandwich they wanted, and another guest would toss it across the room. My grandparents, who raised me, had what was called a “ football wedding.” They rented the Veterans of Foreign Wars hall in Red Hook, Brooklyn, and piled tinfoil-wrapped heroes on a table. When I became a wedding planner, no one in my own family could comprehend my utility. The family is paying you to care as much as they do. You’re the person who cares if the bow on the favor has swallow or inverse tails, or if the maid of honor is being a passive-aggressive bitch when none of the bride’s other friends wants to talk about it anymore. Yes, you help the couple plan what you hope will be a stunning event-but your main job is to be a professional wedding friend. The work of a luxury-wedding planner is only partly about the planning. I should never do this job again.” Sometimes the clients just need to vent. Will the email be full of joy and praise? Or will it be one of complaint? Back when I was a luxury-wedding planner in New York City, my business partner and I once got an email from a bride, written as she helicoptered off to her honeymoon, saying that her wedding had been a “transcendent experience.” A call from the bride’s mother directly followed. So even if the party went great, on Sunday the wedding planner prays. They mark the beginning of a couple’s new life but sometimes of other things too: family feuds, broken friendships, a long hangover of fiscal regret. ![]() They are revisited-by the couple, by the family, by the person paying the bills-time and again. I say “decide” because weddings are funny affairs-tense, expensive, fraught with emotion. Check out more from this issue and find your next story to read. ![]()
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