Floral installations from the floor to the ceiling. 80,000 stems of roses. Shows supported by megastars pop. Security agents for gold -plated cutlery. For the richest people on Earth, it is not enough to have a luxury wedding, writes The Wall Street Journal. Today, the new normality is to have a “super-dark”, similar to a music festival as a large and costs that amount to millions of dollars.
Anant's three -day wedding and Radhika Ambani in India last year included a glass palace built and a concert of Rihanna.
The wedding of Sofia Richie Grange, the executive director of Atlantic Records, with Elliot Grange from 2023, took place for several days in Antibe, France, included Haute Couture Chanel dresses and a subsequent party with Rock Good Charlotte as the main artist.
When Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez will marry Venice, on a multi-day holiday, which is expected next week, their event is expected to raise the pole above.
This trend transformed the organizers into “wedding producers”, as Sarah Haywood said, a luxury event organizers, working with suppliers in achieving what couples hope to be not only the most memorable event, but also in their lives.
“Before it was about fireworks, then about drones,” said Colin Cowie, a luxury event organizer who organized weddings for celebrities like Jennifer Lopez. “Now, fireworks are drawn from drones.”
A multi -day luxury wedding with 200 guests now has a price of about 4 million dollars, according to Jamie Simon, director of events at the Planning Banana Split's planning company, who gave life to Grange's wedding. Cowie said he worked at weddings that cost eight digits.
The cost includes luxury suppliers for everything, from caviar to cocktail time, to $ 75,000 suspended installations, to sound and lighting worthy of nightclubs. And these suppliers need suppliers: catering companies are now hire culinary stylists to ensure that their culinary creations are artistically exposed. Barters resort to mixologists to create personalized cocktails. Flowers work with drapes artists, who add large pieces of material for added drama. Almost everyone sign a confidentiality agreement before the work begins.
“Luxury weddings have become theatrical,” said Preston Bailey, an event designer who planned weddings like Ivanka Trump and Last year's wedding.
80,000 rose stems
The details about Bezos and Sánchez's wedding remained largely secrets.
The couple hired the wedding organizer Lanza & Baucina, a discreet company based in London, who planned George Clooney's wedding in 2014, and seems to be married on a Venetian island. The protests against the use of Venice as a wedding place are in progress.
A representative of Bezos and Sánchez refused to comment. Lanza & Baucina did not respond to comment requests.
A luxury wedding in a tourist destination requires many people to be produced. Haywood in London works with teams of up to 500 people for the events they plan. “We have 80,000 stems of roses here. Can you imagine how many people are needed to arrange those flowers?” She said, while taking a call while organizing a wedding near Monaco. Refused to name the couple.
In addition to the workforce needed for arrangement and serving, Haywood also has a team of 20 people who provide small details, such as bridesmaids dresses. He also deals with the important personalities of the family-ensuring, for example, that “grandparents have a permanent drink in the glass.”
“This type of customer owns several houses that are equipped with large staff, so when they come and host a wedding, they need this level of services,” added Haywood.
Bailey said that clients usually “hope to show guests something they have never experienced before.” Bailey built $ 600,000 structures, rented a 3 -meter chandeliers and ordered personalized furniture from Egypt. It usually works with silk flowers for suspended installations, which can cost between $ 25,000 and $ 75,000.
The wedding decoration sometimes requires the work of a drapery artist, who wraps the walls and ceilings with kilometers of textile materials.
“The curtains are the showcase of the party,” said Tommy Murphy, an artist in the drapes at Swag Decor, based in Orlando. Recently, he worked at a luxury wedding in northern New York, which had dollars. “It doesn't matter if you spend $ 1 million on flowers if you have ugly walls,” he said.
The older couples also opt for video mapping, where bright artists project 3D images throughout the location.
“They are captivating,” said Ira Levy, a luxury lighting designer, who said that such light projections cost between 60,000 and $ 100,000. “I took people through different corners of the world.”
Bailey recently ordered a hologram worth $ 500,000 by the deceased grandfather of a bride, to send you good wishes. “The billionaires like this idea,” Bailey said.
Famous chefs and DJs of Millions of dollars
Simon said that Banana Split has collaborated with famous chefs like Wolfgang Puck and Gordon Ramsay at weddings, although other customers prefer an informal menu, with chickens and fried potatoes.
At this level, it has become commonplace to collaborate with a culinary stylist to help “tell a story,” said Olivier Cheng, a catering provider in New York. He said a luxury catering can cost between $ 750 and $ 1,000 per person.
Cheng remembers how he hired a culinary stylist for a luxury wedding and has arranged a buffet in the style of a night market with several food stands. “I created a story about the spice market. I created a story about sardines,” Cing said. “People want more than a menu with three dishes.”
Today's super-hungry often include a famous artist, paying families for a main artist to interpret a few hits. “The Russians started this tradition,” Haywood said.
Families paid large amounts to hire musicians such as Paul McCartney, Elton John, Rolling Stones and Lionel Richie. It seems that Justin Bieber won $ 10 million because he sang at the Ambani family wedding last summer. Through a representative, Bieber refused to comment.
You are getting more and more looking for, brand DJs like Gryffin and Martin Solveig are also more and more sought after, as couples seek to turn the after-wedding party into a nightclub in Ibiza.
“Even DJs are asking for a million dollars,” Bailey said.
Haywood said he has noticed a slight decrease in the number of requests from American families, indicating that some rich Americans no longer trust the economy. It estimates that several luxury American weddings will move abroad now, that Trump's rates have affected the industry.
She also added that a couple recently asked for white peacocks at a wedding in August, in Italy-a request that she could not fulfill because the summer is the season in which sheep, so the birds would have been without feathers. (Not to mention the restrictions on the stems due to avian influenza.) The bride was obsessed with details, and Haywood said she had to oppose it. “Finally, you try to give the client what he wants. But there are some limits”
Simon remembered that he had sent a courier with a private plane from London to Maldives to deliver salt, because the couple felt that the wedding bloody cocktails needed it.
“You want to turn dreams into reality, no matter how trivial it may sound,” he said, adding that his role asks him to take all the requests seriously. “You can't tell someone how to drive their rolls-Royce.”
Bailey remembered a period when the flowers shipped from the Netherlands for a Kuwait wedding were stuck at the airport due to an alleged customs problem. “I had to send someone with 3,000 or $ 4,000 cash. At that time, you are willing to do anything.”
Ruth Minkowitz, an organizer of luxury events in Italy, said that weddings in Venice, such as Bezos and Sánchez, are a special logistics nightmare. When his family company, Elite Kosher Events, organizes a wedding in Venice, are starting to prepare six days before, instead of three.
“Food, plates, materials, everything, everything goes by boat,” said Minkowitz. “You need a lot more personally, just to move.”
