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Cristina Verger
Rome, Milan, Florence, Paris, and Costa Rica WEDDING BELLS ARE RINGING
C
ristina Verger has run her eponymous events planning firm for nearly two decades, creating everything from corporate and society gatherings to birthday parties, but it’s weddings that she most enjoys envisioning and
organizing. “A wedding is emotional, it’s forever. There is no doover. It has to be perfect no matter what,” says the Italian-born, New York-based Verger. For that reason, she personally handles every detail of weddings her firm takes on. “No one is going to speak to my assistants when they’re planning a wedding,” she says. “They’re meeting with me on everything.” To make sure she is able to give each wedding the proper attention, Verger only takes on a maximum of eight per year. She goes the extra mile by, say, personally delivering custom-made table linens to the venues, and even performing the seemingly impossible, like bumping an entire wedding for 250 people to the following day in January 2016 (as she had to do when a blizzard hit New York City.) “Weddings are fun to do because it’s the event that really needs you. It’s where you really can have an impact,” she says. Though Verger is discreet about naming her high-profile clients, a television news personality, a professional athlete and an owner of
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BY B E NNE T T MARCUS the Minnesota Twins are among them.
Rome to Costa Rica With satellite offices in Rome, Milan, Florence and Paris, destination weddings have become something of a specialty of Verger’s. Often, the weddings take place in Europe, but she has planned them in Vermont, Aspen and beyond. In Costa Rica, she planned a wedding for a couple that fell in love with an off-the-grid jungle town, complete with dirt roads, and decided they had to marry there. No matter where you hope to get married, Verger will ensure that the experience unique. Hers is a boutique company specializing in giving clients a distinctive experience. “If you want something unusual, it’s not a Pierre wedding, it’s not a Plaza wedding, it’s not a St. Regis wedding, it’s your wedding, that’s what I’m going to make it,” says Verger.
Windows on the World Verger has spent 30 years working in hospitality. After a brief stint in finance, she got a job with the Helmsley Corporation at the St. Moritz Hotel, where within a year and a half she became director of the banquet department. After that, Verger worked at Windows on the World, running a department that grossed $20 million per year. She then spent seven years as director of catering for the Harvard Club of New York City.
But Verger always wanted her own business, so she eventually decided to take that chance, and the company is now in its 16th year. Now, while planning events at venues in New York, she often meets people that have trained under her or worked for her.
Family-Owned Hotel Verger’s love affair with hospitality actually began in childhood, in Rome, where her family owned a hotel that her mother, grandmother and great-grandmother ran. “My dream was always to run the hotel,” she says. “It was against my mother’s wishes because she felt that it was a job that left you no time for your private life, just like hers.” She would beg to be allowed to skip school and instead spend the day at her mother’s side, learning the ins and outs of running the hotel. The family moved to the United States when she was a teenager, but Verger thinks her European background and command of several languages benefits her clients. “I think if you’re born in Europe, because the countries are so close together, you are naturally exposed to so many different cultures, and you create a much better bridge for the American who wants to get married abroad,” she says. For more information, visit CristinaVerger.com or call 212-715–0590.