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s a wedding planner, I try hard to give every bride the fairy-tale wedding she has been dreaming of all her life, but without a crystal ball you can’t always predict what might blindside you. Of course, the show must go on and a great wedding planner can find a creative solution and sometimes even keep the bride and groom from ever knowing there was a problem at all.
While I began to work out alternate answers, the shipping company called back and said that they would receive a shipment of roses the next morning, not exactly the same variety, but similar, and they would messenger them to the hotel as soon as they could so that we could have them arranged. Of course, this is one of those stories that you just hope and pray the outcome will be positive and when it is, you can laugh about it afterward.
FLOWERS I produced a wedding in Palm Springs and the flowers were being delivered and arranged on site. We took over an entire hotel and thought that it would be easier to construct all the centrepieces and flower arrangements at the hotel. The flowers were scheduled to be delivered by FedEx the day before the wedding, so that there would be plenty of time to arrange them. As it got later and later in the day, the flowers still had not arrived. I called the shipping company and found out that the thousands of roses that were being shipped from Ecuador had a parasite and did not pass through customs. The wedding flowers were not allowed into the United States, and had been incinerated. This is where panic started to kick in, but there was no way that I was going to tell the bride that she was not going to have flowers at her wedding! In that situation, you literally start to think, should I run to every grocery store and florist in town to buy every single flower they have? Do I send my assistant back to Los Angeles to the flower mart first thing in the morning to buy every rose possible?
WEATHER Weather is always one of those wedding elements that you just cannot control. No matter how many times someone tells a bride, “Rain on your wedding day will bring good luck,” it is just a way to pacify the fact that rain on an outdoor wedding is miserable. I had a client getting married on a Saturday afternoon outside on a perfectly manicured lawn. We built a custom platform for the entire wedding party to stand on, laid down a subfloor so that the bride’s heels would not sink into the grass; we literally thought of everything to create the most beautiful ceremony ever. The weather was cooperating and we were able to get all the rental items in place the day before the wedding. Things were looking great until around 7 pm, when the dark clouds started to roll in and the chance for rain shot up to 100%. I was not at the hotel, but received a frantic call from the bride that rain was on its way and the ceremony area was going to be flooded. I advised the bride and groom to run to the hardware store and they bought giant tarps to cover the lawn to protect it from getting soaked. Literally, right after getting the tarps down, it poured cats and dogs. It was one of those torrential downpours that are rare in southern California. Lucky for us, after a good soaking, the rain left almost as fast as it had arrived, and when the tarps were removed the grass underneath wasn’t soggy. We had a back-up plan to move the wedding indoors, as you should always have if you’re not using a tent, but you never really want to use it. (The following day, the sky was crystal clear so the weather — and the wedding — was perfect.)
PRE-NUPTIALS On a number of occasions I have seen couples dealing with the dreaded pre-nup agreement. While I honestly see nothing wrong with having one, and think that if you take yourself out of the emotional equation, a prenuptial agreement is ultimately to protect everyone and really is not a question of how much someone loves you. If you really think about it, if your love is as strong as it should be to even have a wedding, then the written agreement will never rear its ugly head and all will be grand.
Somehow it seems that most couples put off the details of the prenuptial agreement until the last minute, and it becomes an emergency. Like anything, if you wait until the last minute, things get rushed and then the pressure can really set in. Especially when family is beginning to arrive, the months of planning are becoming reality and the celebration is about to start; you don’t want that moment burdened with signing something that could create disagreements and sour the day. I’ve seen it many a time when feelings get hurt, threats of cancelling the wedding are tossed around and what should be a joyous celebration starts to become a not-so-happy one. As a wedding planner, you literally become an extension to the family and, like a hairdresser, you know everything about all aspects of a wedding: the good, the bad and the ugly! You can suggest that the couple take a step back, evaluate the situation and discuss it in an objective manner. Sometimes that helps, sometimes it doesn’t, and when that is the case, I have witnessed a couple of pre-nups become post-nups. This can work if the couple can agree to set it aside and choose to enjoy their wedding day and get back to the negotiations after they are married. At least in this situation, the couple gets to enjoy their wedding and it reverts back to a joyous celebration.
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