The article has been automatically translated into English by Google Translate from Russian and has not been edited.

How do elite weddings plan for ultra-rich families

'13.06.2017'

Source: Racked

When Prince Charles married Lady Diana Spencer in 1981, it was the most luxurious wedding feast anyone has ever seen. Typically, such weddings are characterized by numbers: 2500 guests in St. Paul’s Cathedral, 750 millions of people watch houses on TV, 10 000 pearls and 25-meter veils on Diana’s dress. The event drew on $ 140 million, tells Racked.

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The event was organized by Lord Macklin, who, receiving the title of Lord Chamberlain at that time, was the senior officer of the royal family. His duties included all festive ceremonies, including weddings and funerals.

When Charles and Diana's son Prince William married Kate Middleton 30 years later, his wedding had already drawn $ 34 000 000.

Lord Chamberlain’s office planned to hold a day ceremony at Westminster Abbey, but a party at Buckingham Palace was organized by an event planning firm. Fait Accompli. The same company was organizing Pippa Middleton's wedding last month.

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This does not mean that there is a gap in tradition. Just the time does not stand still, and attitudes towards the organization of weddings change. Three decades ago, big magnificent weddings were a rare occurrence. The rich and famous relied in the organization of family ceremonies on their secretaries and assistants. And the very scope of such events was small. All others planned their weddings with the help of common sense or neighbors and friends.

After the wedding of Charles and Diana, almost all the brides of the world wanted their own wedding to be just as beautiful and good. And everyone could make a memorable day fabulous, if he had the means to do so. And as the demand for large-scale wedding ceremonies began, the demand for specialized wedding organizers began to grow.

There are a lot of such specialists all over the world, but there is a small rating, which includes 20 of the best organizers. They are engaged in the largest and most expensive projects. One such specialist is Sarah Harewood.

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Sarah does not like the name of the profession - the wedding planner. Says it sounds like something silly and resembles the image of Jennifer Lopez in The Wedding Planner. Harewood is engaged in planning on a massive scale, and the term “planner” diminishes the merits of Sarah herself and her entire team.

“If you search the Internet for a wedding planner, you are unlikely to find a good specialist. Also, if you put a wedding planner in the “profession” column, you will not be able to find a truly serious order. This is how the Internet works, ”says Sarah.

She works exclusively with high-ranking officials. Her clients include business tycoons, titled individuals and celebrities. About the last Sarah notes that celebrities never want to pay.

“All these TV show stars only seem rich. But for them the picture is important. It’s just that the rich and famous are very different from Ultrarich, really rich people. "

Ultrarich There are 2257 people in the world. Their overall condition is almost $ 8 trillion, which is 10% of the global economy. And at the moment, the number of billionaires has almost doubled, compared with 2012 year. It is likely that the number of these people is much more, because billionaires are very secretive people.

To term Ultrarich This includes not only billionaires, but also those whose income exceeds $ 100 million. They constitute 0,0001%. These are people for whom there are no obstacles. All that can be bought for money is bought.

“Such people have a very large staff. They are very difficult to reach, and I often do not have direct contact with the customer, ”says Sarah. In addition, she does not always know the real name of the customer. In her practice, there was a client who hired her through the security service and after the whole project she never found out his name.

Saa Company is based in London because of the city’s status as an international center. Sarah has clients in Britain, America, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and many clients in Asia.

“This is, of course, a problem for us at the moment, because in China people do not want to show their wealth,” says Sarah. Registration of marriage in China looks like this - a couple goes to the local government office, sign a piece of paper, after which you can still have time to have lunch.
“My clients are looking for romance like they see in Hollywood movies. Their wildest fantasies are weddings in France, Italy or England. In their own country, they prefer not to advertise a luxurious event, since it is not accepted there. But Europe is big, you can always find a place where you can perfectly celebrate your wedding, ”says Sarah.

Until recently, Sarah took orders no less than 12-16 weeks before the planned date. But now people began to plan much earlier, and she explains this by anxiety about the state of the whole world. Even very rich people worry that Brexit and Donald Trump means for themselves and for the general economic climate.

Sarah prefers faster planning, as it makes life easier for her clients and herself.

“They do not overload their mind and can continue to live their normal lives. They do not need to start planning for a whole year, because they can hire me, and I will make sure that everything is done on time. Once, during 18 days, we managed to plan a wedding. ”

Sarah Harewood compares her work to an orchestra conductor or an army general. She coordinates the entire process at the highest level, monitoring that all processes go smoothly and without a hitch. Timing is everything. All details matter. Service is key.

“Whoever you are, your wedding day should be a special day, more special than every day. If you already live your usual life, staying in the best hotels of the world, riding the best cars, preferring the best dishes, haute couture clothes, and then you come to me and ask me to make your most important day special, then for me it is difficult a challenge, but that's what I have to do. ”
Sarah says that customers usually come to her without a preliminary budget. But this does not mean that they do not bargain.
“There is a widespread belief that very rich people do not know how to handle money or do not spare money. It is not true. They are very well versed in money and ready to bargain for every dollar. ”

Elite wedding planners, such as Sara, often work with event designers. They are responsible for the aesthetic appearance of the event. Lighting, flowers, cake, everything related to visual effects, up to the design of the speakers, with which the band will arrive. One goal - a harmonious visual story.

Preston Bailey - one of the most famous names in wedding design. He began as a florist and became famous for his unique arrangements. And Preston believes that the most interesting client is ultramodern and difficult.

“Luxury is unique. Luxury creates the event itself. People then talk for a long time about what they saw. And for clients, this is an interesting story. You can't just come and put what they want at their feet. There should be a full level of entertainment, ”says Preston.

That is what Bailey embodied in the wedding of Melissa Rivers, which was then copied more than once all over the world. Every guest at this wedding was equipped with a costume designer. Lord of the Rings Ngil Dixon.

There was also the third wedding of George Soros, which he compares with a theatrical production, massive and confusing. And the third wedding of Donald Trump, as well as a wedding for two of Trump's children.

“As a groom, he was great,” Preston says of Trump, although he is reluctant to comment on his former client's political career. "When we married Ivanka, he was a typical father of the bride, who wanted everything to be perfect."

Preston often designs original structures, both temporary and permanent, for the weddings he works for - especially royal weddings in the Middle East. Preston cannot name his royal clients, but he can name countries: Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar. He also designed weddings in Hong Kong, Colombia, southern France, India.

“We did events in which we built cities and buildings, so you can imagine that this is directly related to the price,” he says. “Hiring architects and engineers and everything else to bring the whole space together is costly.”

“The way people spend a lot of money is a big design, so not only the flowers on the tables, but also big, huge installations. Space transformation that can take days or even weeks. "

Celebrity performers were new only 10 years ago, but now they are something of the norm. John Mayer, Katy Perry and Chris Martin have always been in demand for private weddings. Earlier this year, Mariah Carey and Elton John performed at the wedding of the granddaughter of the Russian billionaire, and Mark Ronson was the DJ there. Sarah blames her Russian clients for this trend:

“These are the people who have started holding fabulous parties for everything: 18 birthday parties, 21 birthday parties, wedding anniversaries, and not just weddings. They leveled the uniqueness of this event.

Now we have a wedding where one headliner is not enough. They need three or four. Then you run into problems regarding the order in which you put them. ”

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“Gathering invited artists is always difficult. Someone is currently on tour, for example. Where will he be in the world during that wedding? To one, it may be “on the way” this weekend and will be happy to make half a million dollars.

After a few months, he can request a fee in 4 times as much, since he will have to interrupt family leave to work it out. There are certain technical specifications. If you want to hire John Legend, he will only play on a special piano. Yamaha because to him that kind of performance is almost like performing at the Grammy Awards. "

Sarah uses the agency to coordinate a schedule of actions, and asks clients to voice the approximate amount they are willing to spend. Based on this, the agency can tell them which artists are available in this part of the globe for this amount.

If you do not want to spend millions or even hundreds of thousands, you can try to invite a TV show participant; Sarah says the finalist X Factor or Idol You can pay a total of 80 thousand dollars. Groups that are not at their peak of popularity can also come to more reasonable prices.

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The bride's wedding dress is another major item. It's not just about buying a designer - it's about getting 100% one-of-a-kind dress (or, in many cases, multiple dresses). Services Couture a designer like Monique Lhuyer, who sells mantle dresses for 20 000 dollars, starts with 55 000 dollars.

Lace, beading - all options. Among the most exquisite dresses, she made a dress with a pink rose organza skirt and a 50-meter veil. Bride trying on a dress from Couture 5 travels on average at Monica's studio in Los Angeles.

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Costs also add up when you serve the best wines, the best dishes. And the difficulty is in scaling quality when it comes to gourmet cuisine. Last year, at one of Sarah's weddings, 20 kilograms of caviar were served.

She had to install a kitchen safe for caviar and hire someone to guard him. One kilogram of elite sturgeon caviar costs almost 4000 dollars.
And, of course, these celebrations are not for one day.

Nell Diamond was 25 years old when she started planning a wedding in March 2014. Her husband, Teddy, is 10 older than her. She studied at a business school at Yale University during the engagement and decided to get married during her fall break in October so that she would not have to miss a year of study.

At first, the couple had fun at a party at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, and then the wedding moved to Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc in the south of France, where Nell spent time in childhood. She knew that guests would love to come here from all over the world, especially wherever they decided to play a wedding, guests would still have to travel.

Nell's family lives in America, and now she herself lives in New York, where she runs her own bed linen company. Hill house homebut she grew up in London where her father Bob Diamond worked in Barclays, eventually rising to the post of chief executive of a British bank.

For some time she also lived in Tokyo. Teddy family from Baltimore. It was easy enough for France to get to its British guests in France; there is also a direct flight to Nice from New York. Nell and Teddy wanted to celebrate their wedding with all the friends who could come to France.

Hôtel du cap Is one of the most glamorous hotels in the world, located at the top of the Cap d'Antibes on the French Riviera, surrounded by pine and palm trees. The hotel overlooks the Mediterranean Sea, which you can access by jumping off the hotel's famous diving board. The hotel has an infinity pool with basalt rock, immortalized by a photographer Slim aarons... Guests of the resort include heads of state, celebrities and artists.

Nell uses words like “lucky” and “grateful” when she discusses her wedding. She knows that weddings like this are not the norm.

“We told all our friends that we understand - everyone has their own things to do, and we will understand those who cannot come. It's really important to let your friends know that we are not forcing them to come, ”says Nell.

Fait Accompli, the same London-based event company that planned the wedding of Will and Kate, was planning the wedding of Nell. Her father met with the managing director of the company. Fait Accompli Alex Fitzgibbon through business partners. Having a European planner made sense for a European wedding. They also liked the firm's professionalism.

Most of the guests arrived on Thursday afternoon, with the exception of those who had homes nearby, stopped at Hôtel du capwhere spouses subsidized rooms, the smallest, which cost about 600 dollars on the night of the October weekend.

The pool and diving board were first things to do for most, followed by a family-style welcome dinner. Activity cards were completed for Friday and Saturday - guests could travel around Old Nice, explore the Picasso Museum, take a boat trip to the vineyard, enjoy a mountain bike ride. Petanque courts have been set up, teeming with local champions, to teach guests a French bocce-like game. On Friday evening, a rehearsal party was organized at the small beach bar for DJs, friends of the Diamonds - Chelsea Leyland and Mia Moretti.

“I want to see what people choose when they get entertainment to choose from. It gives me ideas. It makes me happy when I see how people spend the best day of their lives. ”

And then on Saturday night, the main event, the wedding ceremony, which took place at sunset. Nell also finds the dresses from Olivier Theyskens and Prabal Gurung beautiful.

“I love the look of the corset and I love the waist,” she says.
“Olivier just came up with this idea. He sent me tissue samples, then embroidery, and then I had three fittings. It was the most incredible thing I ever imagined, and it became even more special because someone I love made it for me. ”

You may have seen on the Internet a boom of photos from that wedding.

Thanks to Instagram, #nellandteddy almost immediately became a virus.

“I am active on social media, so there was no question that I was going to post a lot,” says Nell. But she could not even imagine that her wedding would receive such attention.

There were a lot of photogenic moments, but then, in the fall of 2014, Instagram was different than now. Unusual wedding, unusual.

Nell received many new followers of her wedding image, and the hashtag was used by people who were not even at the wedding. Harper's Bazaar combined some of the best instagram photos in one post, did it and Daily Mail, Business Insider and New York Daily News. The following month appeared publication on the site Spindriftwritten by a friend who attended the wedding and worked for a magazine.

“When I went back to business school and came to class, someone asked me how my wedding went,” Nell says.

"And then everyone laughed, because everyone has Instagram! Everyone knows how my wedding went. ”

However, according to the 13 survey of thousands of American brides and grooms, the average cost of a wedding in 2016 was $ 33 329. The highest average cost in Manhattan was $ 78 464.
Marcy Blum wrote the book Weddings for Dummies.

Marcy defines a real luxury wedding - from $ 1500 per person. Preston specifies a range of $ 3000 to $ 5000 for a "five star wedding."

However, among the ultra-rich there is a difference between the indicators of wealth.

“The owners of old money, such as Rockefeller money, worked a lot in five generations. These people want everything to be beautiful, but you will never offer them Dom Pérignon».

Her Russian clients are responsible for the brightest events she has done. Marcie points to a photograph of the wedding on 500 the man she made in Waldorf Astoria for a Russian client.

“They were very generous and lovely,” she says, “but you had to get everything out of your closet and show them, because otherwise you would look poor or stingy. I don't know which is worse, being poor or mean, but neither is considered good. None of my Russian clients asked me again: "Are you serious?"

When she was planning the wedding of LeBron James, it was a different experience. The NBA star was much more circumspect about his spending.

"He always said:" I know where I came from, I will not return there. This is what I think is reasonable. ”
“I would prefer a Russian client,” says Marcy, winking.

At Lebron's wedding, there was a strict ban on phones, politics, and cameras. Break the entire Internet, you can hardly find a lot of details and photos from the wedding. The guests did not know until recently where the ceremony would take place, they had to call a special hotline to find out where and when the ceremony and reception would be.

James’s privacy approach is not unusual, and not just celebrities do this. You will never see or hear about the vast majority of high-level weddings.

“Ninety-nine percent don't want to be talked about, written in magazines,” says Sarah Haywood of her clients.

Many do not want to discuss what the bride was wearing, what was served on the table. Most consider it vulgar and an invasion of privacy. Nondisclosure is a must in the wedding industry. In addition, wedding planners can only talk about some weddings in general terms, without naming names or more details. Those photos that are posted on the official websites of wedding planners and social media pages - most often without people's faces or without a signature - and after the ceremony has taken place.

Some couples, however, go the opposite way and actually hire public relations firms to get their place in the press.

“I tell people they’re blown away,” says Alexandra Macon, who talks about weddings for Vogue.com, as well as on your own site.
"There are so many people creating this wonderful event that it is almost gratifying to have a public relations officer in the background to make sure that person makes sure everyone gets gratitude for the hard work they have done."

One such company is Maid of Socialwhich provides social media and PR strategies for weddings. This service entails additional costs. The company's 5-carat package will provide you with a software strategy in the format of 360 degrees, which includes an editorial partnership in Instagram and / or Snapchat, as well as preliminary placement of press releases. He also promises "connecting to non-traditional wedding brands to ensure product placement." The price for the most up-to-date service is usually around $ 5000, but maybe more than 5.

Web site Spindrift Is a welcome place to be. What was once a one-off story is now full site material. Vogue.com Is a veritable repository for weddings of the ultra-rich, especially those with social media accounts. This is where you'll find your first #noormandie wedding account and a detailed description of "a safari wedding in the heart of South Africa's Kruger National Park."
Town & Country Is another privileged site. The chronicle of high-grade weddings is part of the magazine's DNA.

“We've published nearly every Vanderbilt wedding ever, both Roosevelt and Kennedy,” says Associate Editor Lina Kim, who heads the magazine's monthly wedding column. T&C is also releasing a biennial wedding supplement.
"We are always trying to find and highlight interesting, important and influential members of this XNUMX% group."

People ask Marcie how she can live in peace with herself, creating wildly extravagant events for wildly rich people when there is so much poverty in the world. She explains to them that the cost of the wedding is not related to her clients. No one should get a second mortgage or go into debt to pay for one of these weddings.

“It won't affect their lifestyle,” she says. “For generations it won't affect anything. I talk about it all the time. I am a very left-wing Democrat and very anti-Trump, but in the end I am a capitalist. This does not mean that you lie, steal, kill people to make money, but it means that you believe that you are allowed to make money. "

However, there is a moment when these events can turn into a parody. Recent column T&C from Leena shows off the wedding party of the car executive Carlos Ghosn and his wife Carol at Versailles, inspired by Marie Antoinette Sophia Coppola, complete with actors in French costumes of the 18 of the 20th century. This is just one example, when the wedding was in the style of "let everyone die with envy."

The wedding of the Getty and jewelry designer Sabine Ghanem held a party Dangerous Liaisonsin which guests dressed themselves, like the French aristocracy. Kanye West and Kim Kardashian chose Versailles as their rehearsal dinner at 2014, and arrived in a luxurious horse-drawn carriage with at least some guests in evening dress. Ten years earlier, the estimated $ 55 million wedding of Amit Bhatia and Vanisha Mittal, daughter of an Indian steel magnate, became a top extravagant ceremony in Versailles.
Sometimes these numbers seem not only obscene (55 million dollars!), But also the boundary of the impossible. In 2015, the wedding of Chinese actress-slash-model-slash-singer Angelaby received attention because of the estimated price of $ 31 million. Last year, Said Gutseriev, the son of a Russian oligarch, married Khadija Uzhakhova in the so-called world's first billionth wedding. There are no figures or sources confirming these amounts, but there were performances by Enrique Iglesias, Jennifer Lopez and Sting, and the photographs show the bride in a crystal-encrusted dress by Eli Saab, a nine-tier cake and an incredible amount of expensive flowers.
New Zealand Herald told Sarah about this wedding, and she said she was outraged because people thought she might have planned it. She described this event as absolutely monstrous.
“Not everyone understands what we get our money for. Here is a florist and food supplier - understandable. Or musicians. But every customer says he is willing to pay us more times in 2.

Planning is so ephemeral that it is very difficult to explain what we should pay for. Now I pull out my catalogs and show - here are 47 different options. People paid us so that we could visualize their dream. ”

When Marcie made a name for herself at the beginning of her career, she accepted a commission from customers, then switched to a fixed fee. Now she puts to the client a percentage of everything that affects her areas of work. From 18 to 20% of the total final budget. Because it often happens that the wedding was originally planned with a budget of $ 500 thousand, and then the bar rises to 1 million.

Sarah charges the 15% of the budget with minimal pay and closes it when a customer spends a certain amount. Preston has two payment models: one for a wedding in the USA and one for international events.

“The national model, all that was charged was a design fee,” he says. "And since flowers are my passion, I usually make flowers and celebrate for a profit."

These estimated fees range from $ 100 thousand to $ 500 thousand, and also include drawings, visualizations and execution plans.
Of course, everything can go awry when such money is involved. Another major planner based in Los Angeles, Mindy Weiss, sued a couple that has more than $ 340 thousand unpaid bills after their daughter's wedding. In addition, Mindy added another $ 1,4 million in damages.

As the newspapers wrote - the story is very confusing. Joan and Bernard Karl claim that according to the original contract, the wedding should not have exceeded $ 1 million in expenses, but according to the final calculations, almost $ 2 million came to be. For wedding planners, there are no hard trims. Every whim for your money.
Marcy and Mindy and the rest of their friends often collide with each other in the same works. Ultra rich have some choices when it comes to someone who can become an important event planner in their lives. But it was not always so.

“When I started, there were two or three other people,” says Marcy. - And we even feuded. Now that we see each other, we all hug and kiss. "

Marcy says the young planners she calls “tablets” are naive. As long as you are at a certain level - not at the highest level - it can be dangerous. However, once you've reached the top echelon, the competition dissipates. The best planners know each other, they help each other. They know how good you are, and you know how good they are.

Marcy, before she had money for PR people, called the New York Times herself and told stories. She became addicted to Instagram.

“Look,” she tells the salesperson, “if my client pays full price, I can either turn you on or not, at our discretion. But if you gave us time for this, then I would be sure that you are a pro. "
“I watched the 2008-09 recession where even the rich slashed their budgets,” says John Dolan, celebrity wedding photographer (Will Smith, Matt Lauer, Jennifer Lopez).
“But I know all the sellers who have been able to afford to buy a house because of wedding savings on everything from waiters to printing invitations. There is microeconomics that has been really helpful for many people - and we all know each other. "

There are always questions about intentions when it comes to weddings. Who is it done for? For a couple? For parents? For society? There may be additional skepticism when it comes to millions.

“I noticed that there are a lot of really rich people around,” says Sarah. “I mean that there are incredibly rich people who are surrounded by friends or great people. But wealth comes with a lot of responsibility. My observation is that they are often very lonely. "

And maybe one of you will become less lonely. Thanks to the people with whom you drank a glass of champagne at the wedding ceremony, with whom you celebrated the most important day of your life, dressed in chic costumes from famous couturiers, with whom your friends led the wedding serenade, led by Elton John. With someone who will make you happy.

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