- I get a call from her mother-in-law,
she's like, "We have a problem.
"I hate lavender!"
(soft music)
My name's Leora and my company is Best Bride.
I have been a wedding planner for six years now.
- Hi there, I'm Katie Hall Goodman
and I own Best Day Ever LA Events.
I've been planning weddings professionally for five years.
(playful music)
- It's wedding day
and everything's going absolutely perfect.
Obviously the bride needs to start a lot earlier.
She's just about finishing her hair,
and typically when we get at that stage
we'll start getting the groom ready.
He's putting his pants on and we realize
it is short
and tight.
He tries his shirt and it doesn't fit either.
Everything in his garment bag does not fit him.
He had his last fitting
and he went to pick up the tux,
I'm like, "Did you try it when you picked it up?"
"No."
It was the wrong tux.
None of the groomsman tux fit him.
Best thing to do at that point is we gotta go buy a tux.
People usually go shopping and they're like la,
trying to find what they want,
and here we are literally like two crazy people,
like, "Where is the dress shirts?"
He's so picky,
"But I don't like the length of this,
"but I don't like the fit,
"I wanted high waisted, I want the collar to be like that,
"this is too white, I ordered ivory cream."
I'm like listen, at this point we just need to buy something
and we need to go.
We end up buying eight shirts, six different tuxes.
I'm literally pulling him out of the mall,
he's like, "This isn't what I wanted,
"this isn't what I wanted to look on my wedding day.
"I think we have to postpone."
I'm like we're not gonna postpone your wedding
because you got the wrong tux.
We go back.
So the bride is practically ready.
Once she saw him and the first look happened,
she's like, "Babe, is this the tux?
"It looks kind of different."
We're like, "Oh, no, no, no,
"it's probably just the lighting."
You know, obviously the day went by, they were happy.
No one even cared at the end.
All I have to say is,
please try on your tux when you pick it up.
- So for this particular wedding,
it took place at a really nice kind of funky hotel
in West Hollywood.
Beforehand, I had had some issues
with the mother of the bride
because they were trying to cut corners and cut costs
anywhere that they could.
They had a higher guest count.
I told her, you know,
you're gonna have to hire extra staff,
you're gonna have to hire extra bartenders.
People are gonna line up at the bars during cocktail hour
and it's gonna be a line,
and no one's gonna have fun with that.
But she decided against that,
so on the wedding day, of course,
the bars were super backed up
because after the ceremony,
what do people wanna do?
Drink.
And so she started literally going up to the bartenders
and grabbing them and being like,
"Bring water, bring wine!"
And at one point she smacked a server,
which is assault.
We had to pull her aside to be like this is assault,
please don't do this.
Obviously that was not the tone I took
because on the day I'm like, "Can you please not do that."
People almost were going to press charges,
it got that bad.
We almost had to take the mother of the bride
and remove her from the wedding day,
but obviously that would be awful
and something that she would never forget
and the bride would never forget.
So I was able to talk down the venue manager.
I persuaded him with some alcohol later,
said I would buy you cocktails if you just let
this mother of the bride chill out,
and take a breath, and take a breather.
But essentially, we just put a smile on her face,
I asked her to come with me
and I asked her to take a deep breath,
let her know that we will have extra bartenders on staff
to make things go more efficiently.
Moral of the story is
do not assault servers and just hire extra staff.
- It's two days before the wedding,
we finish everything very early on,
and I really try to give them that last week to enjoy.
It's your time to go to the spa, relax,
I'm not gonna bother you
and I don't want you to bother me either.
Everything's absolutely perfect
and I'm gonna see you on your wedding day.
So, I get a call, this time it's not from the bride,
I get a call from her mother-in-law,
and I haven't ever heard from the mother-in-law,
she's not been involved in the planning process,
she didn't come to any meetings,
I literally met her the day they booked me
and I need saw her again.
She's like, "We have a problem.
"I heard that you guys are having lavender color flowers."
and I'm like, "Yeah."
She's like, "I hate lavender!"
Lavender flowers was something that we discussed last year,
and she's like, "Well, lavender is dark, lavender is sad,
"lavender doesn't mean good things.
"Yellow means prosperity, yellow has good meaning.
"Why didn't anyone consult with me?
"I should have chosen the flowers."
10 minutes later I get a call from the bride.
"There is no way I'm changing the colors of my flowers.
"I told you the day I hired you, I love lavender flowers."
I'm like, "Listen, don't worry, this happens all the time.
"We're not changing anything, no worries."
It's the wedding day,
and everything's getting set up
and then I see a vendor loading in
that is not one of our vendors.
The next thing I see a cart rolling in
by their workers with tons of yellow flowers.
They're like, "Hey, we're the florists,
"we're here to bring the flowers."
And I'm like, uh,
I mean, the flowers are basically done.
They're like, "I've been hired by (beep),
"she said it's her sons wedding
"and we're bringing in the flowers."
This lady obviously didn't listen to anything anyone said
or anything the bride wanted.
She went and hired a different florist
to bring the color flowers that she likes.
She ordered tons of these yellow flowers.
I'm like, "Listen, I'll take care of it,
"just please leave the flowers here.
"Thank you guys so much."
A little bit later, the mother-in-law walks downstairs.
She's like, "Oh my god, everything looks great,
"This way everyone can be happy."
I'm like, "What do you mean?"
and she's like, "Well, yeah,
"the yellow flowers are gonna go on my tables,
"and those are gonna be for my guests."
And I'm like, nuh-uh.
My florist is not gonna let another florist
to mix in flowers,
this is not how this works, honey.
She's babbling on and on, "No, but I ordered them,
"I thought this way everybody can be happy.
"I get the yellow, she gets the."
It's not about what you get she gets,
this isn't kindergarten.
At that point, her hair stylist is calling her
to retouch her hair and makeup,
she's so concerned about that, she leaves.
She's like, "You make sure to get it on those tables."
I'm like, okay.
As wedding planners, we have to build that harmony.
I had the hotel put it in the big table they have
when you enter the lobby.
She was happy.
I mean, she came in, she's like's like,
"Ah, it's the first thing they see, thank you!"
She thought we were honoring her.
I guess it all worked out.
- So little things happen at every single wedding,
I feel like one bad thing might happen at each wedding.
There was this one wedding I did
where there were these little incidences
where I was like, what's going on?
At the rehearsal I was lining everybody up,
doing the processional,
and this little boy punched me the (beep).
He literally just came up to me and was like (grunts).
It was the weirdest thing.
The bride is a friend of mine,
she was horrified,
but the boy's mom didn't say anything,
she just was just kind of like, oh, huh.
Not a big deal 'cause I'm fine, but whatever.
This wedding was taking place in Santa Barbara
at this adorable kind of country outdoor venue.
So a lot of times at outdoor venues,
there's the added cost of knowing
that you might have to rent a tent
if the weather forecast is not good.
These clients did not rent a tent,
and because they did not rent a tent,
of course it rained.
It was literally all outdoors,
there was nowhere that people could go indoors.
I felt so bad for the guests
because everyone was literally holding napkins
above their head,
there was one woman that was holding a napkin over her head,
and who I assume was her date
was feeding her her food. (laughs)
It was so awful.
And then at the end of the night,
dances are done,
everyone's good and shweisty,
and we had hired vans because this is on a very windy road,
and of course we don't want anyone to drive drunk.
When the vans arrived to take 100 plus guests
back into town to their hotels,
we smelled something, and we were like, huh, what's that?
And then I had a conversation with drivers
(record needle scratching) and they're like oh,
you're for sure high.
Of course they're fired and they can't drive people
because it's a huge liability.
One of the groomsman was a sheriff,
so he wanted to press charges and get these people arrested.
Luckily, we were able to be like hey,
let's just end the night,
it was a fantastic night.
So I was like, who can I get, who is sober,
who can drive all these people back to town?
There was a restaurant that was attached to this venue,
and luckily, a few of the kitchen guys
had not gone home yet,
and I was like, "Hey, if I give you some cash right now,
"can you drive these two vans into town
"and drive them back, and do that one more time,
"until all the guests are back into town?"
And they were like, "Yeah, cool."
There were little instances that happened,
but I still loved that wedding
because the bride and groom were phenomenal.
(playful music)