Married to the job

With Kate and William's nuptials less than a week away, Julie Jacobson lifts the veil on the planning that goes into the big day.

They're known by some as the froth mistresses, by others as marriage wranglers, and by the less charitable, bridezillas' backstops. Wedding planners are the go-to gals behind some of most lavish affairs known to humankind.
Catering, hair, makeup, lighting, florists, wine, entertainment, cake ... when Prince William and Kate Middleton marry on Friday, it won't be mummy and daddy they'll have to thank for it, but Lady Elizabeth Anson, one of Britain's leading party planners who also happens to be the queen's cousin.
Saying a seamless "I do" is increasingly the work of such professionals. They tout themselves as one-stop shops, where they will play accountant, etiquette adviser, stylist, set designer, logistics support, massage therapist and relationship counsellor. They'll arrange everything from printing the invites to hen parties, first-aid kits in case of day-of emergencies, and honeymoon hampers.
They will each have a list as long as a giant's arm of where brides can go to get the most gorgeous dress, the most romantic venue, the best caterer, the most imaginative theme. They are organisation with a capital "O".
"The person who needs a wedding planner is someone who doesn't organise well," says Renee Patterson of Tauranga's Inspired By Love. "Generally we get [clients] when the stress kicks in, when they've done some things but it's got to a point when they realise that, actually, it's a bit more difficult than they thought."
Patterson's "done" weddings in Auckland, Rarotonga and Mexico. A recent one saw an Auckland couple, their five children from previous marriages and 93 guests head to coastal Tutukaka for a weekend of camping and partying. The wedding dinner was served in boat-shaped noodle boxes.
"They went all-out; they just decided that's what they wanted to do," said Patterson, who planned her first wedding in 2005, just two months after her own.
The cost of a planner depends on their brief, but is usually under $2500 for the works. The average "wedding spend" is estimated to be in the $10,000 -$25,000 range. Patterson's "celebrity" clients can spend anywhere between $150,000 and $500,000, "and you wouldn't want to know what they spend that on".
Oddly enough it's not, as you'd expect, the dress. Planners indulge spoke to said it was the venue and the catering, coupled with items like florists and theming, that pushed modern-day wedding budgets up, and people are spending more and more on them.
Says Patterson: "I did one in the Bay for about $150,000 for a very wealthy family - it was just everything a girl would ever want. The dress wasn't that extravagant at all, it was all those other things. The guests at your wedding are what cost you - the chair, the knife, the fork ... Just bouquets and flowers on the table can cost $1000 to $2000 and a cake from a professional cake designer could be up to $1000."
Planning for weddings can start two years out, or the day before. But according to Pam Black, the author of a book about planning the big day, even a well-organised person needs around 250 hours, or six weeks' work, to arrange an "average" wedding.
Tracey Abbot of Toast event management calls herself a disaster-relief worker. Add in a sprinkling of travel agent, production editor and fairy godmother and "that's me. I guess I'm like the Martin Scorsese of the wedding scene - I direct the day, from the run sheet to making sure the right song comes on at the right time."
Like Patterson, Abbot says she is seeing more emphasis placed on the event and the trappings that go with it - food, decoration, flowers - than previously. She puts it down to increased media coverage of celebrity weddings.
"The trend now is much more on the theming, the whole package, rather than the dress. We're seeing a lot of vintage-inspired weddings - sort of shabby-chic - and at the other end of the spectrum, a lot of glam with feathers and lace and pearls. They're definitely influenced by the celebrities. Brides will see those and go 'Oh daddy please' and daddy darling says 'OK'."
Most of her clients spend upwards of $20,000 and some pay "a lot, lot more", with two-day and week-long celebrations not uncommon.
One recent wedding saw the couple hold a pre-nup party on a Friday, their wedding the following Friday and various social events over the week in between. Another, where the bride wore a gown by Vera Wang - designer to the very rich and famous - had the Toast team organise a live butterfly release.
"They went to town on them," says Abbot. "They had butterflies in the trees - white fabric jewel-encrusted butterflies fluttering through the green - butterflies on the backs of the chairs ... it was beautiful."
However, she notes a tendency among younger couples to ignore reality: "I think quite a few would like the champagne wedding but have got a beer budget. Young ones especially don't seem to realise just how much everything costs. For a marquee you're looking at at least $2000, and for a venue upwards of that."
Still, that pales into insignificance beside the $11,000 one couple, tying the knot in front of 300 guests next January, is forking out on decorating alone. Expats returning to the Bay from the UK to get married, they've requested that the walls and ceiling at their reception be draped in white satin and lit with Barbie-pink uplights.
Sarah Manwell, who runs Funtasia, the events company tasked with the fitout, says the popularity of special effects and mood lighting is a fairly recent trend. It coincides with a move away from the ubiquitous flutes-on-tables settings she was doing when she started the business 17 years ago.
Then she worked from a basement at her home. Today the warehouse on Eighth Ave, where she and daughter Jessica theme around 15 weddings a week, is bursting at the seams with every bridal prop imaginable.
"It looks like a Santa's warehouse for brides, but it has to. When I first started everything was pretty much white, gold and green.
"Nowadays no wedding is the same ... I've just been working with a couple - the bride was South African and the groom was a Kiwi - who wanted to blend the two cultures. They had things like ostrich feathers and zebra table runners."
One trend that does appear likely to continue, however, is the vintage or retro wedding. A knee-length 50s-inspired wedding dress with black lace overlay, accessorised with a birdcage fascinator and gloves, was a hit for local designer Corina Snow at the recent NZ Bridal Week in Auckland.
Snow has been "in fashion" since she was 18 and designing and making couture gowns from her Mt Maunganui premises for nine years. She is known for her ability to fit all body shapes, and also advises on shoes, underwear and other accoutrements.
Presumably she's not going to suggest the favourite Batman undies worn by one Wellington bride under her layers of tulle? "We're a bit more upmarket. We specialise in the traditional - that era where ladies were ladies and they had nicely shaped gowns to show off their figures. I think a little bit of cleavage is nice and I like to drop the back as low as I can because I think back is sexy, but there's sexy and there's ... well, we don't want Pamela Anderson boobs hanging out, put it that way."
She works in natural fabrics such as silks, silk-satin and silk georgette. Embellishments include Swarovski crystals, hand-cut lace motifs and beading.
Fifty per cent of her gowns - and she says she only makes two or three stereotypical "princess" or "meringue" dresses a year - are diamond or bridal white (off-white) in colour, 40 per cent ivory and the rest in antique hues and white.
"I suppose the most unusual one I have done was for a Pacific Island bride. She had nine flowergirls and seven bridesmaids and her father said she had to have a high neckline and long sleeves. She had a 12-metre train. I was trying to tell them the bride would be on the toilet and her train would still be out partying, but the mum wouldn't be talked down."
Tauranga Wedding and Special Events Show, Baypark, Sunday, May 22.