11 Wedding Planners Reveal the Craziest Client Requests
Updated: Mar. 07, 2022
Wedding planners are committed to getting the job done no matter what the circumstances. But some of these requests pushed them a little too far.
Vase latrine
“We have had brides that couldn’t make it to restrooms, and have had to relieve themselves in floral vases as we hold the dress. We have had mothers of the bride ask us to put their shoes on. We have had groomsmen rip open their tuxedo pants, and have had to makeshift a quick sew-up. We even had a matron of honor ask us to drive to her hotel and pick up a new dress as hers tore that evening. Sometimes, wedding planner isn’t the perfect word, we are a jack of all trades mixed with a superhero and a magician in one. Whatever it takes to get the job done!” —Teresa Fernandez, the founder of Simply Couture Weddings, who was also a winner of The Knot 2019 Best Weddings Award. We guess that urinating in public isn’t one of the 8 wedding etiquette rules you should never break—at least not if you’re the bride.
First class vino
“We flew part of a family’s wine collection across the country on a private plane to serve during each segment of the wedding! We had a manifesto to adhere to as soon as the plane landed to keep each crate at a particular temperature when it was deplaned. Precious cargo that was, according to guests, well worth the trip!” —Aleah and Nick Valley, founders of Valley & Company Events, who were winners of The Knot 2019 Best Weddings Award
Wedding SWAG
“The vast majority of the time, our customers choose traditional or popular sayings to print on the personalized wedding koozies, cups, and other items they give their guests. But we periodically get a request for a quote that makes our graphic designers chuckle a bit or raise an eyebrow.
One customer asked that we print ‘Webster’s dictionary defines wedding as ‘the fusing of two metals with a hot torch.’ It’s a quote from Michael Scott of The Office fame. It’s not the most romantic saying we’ve ever printed for couples but we did it with a smile. We also had an imprint request to place ‘Til Death’ above an image of the grim reaper with a scythe in his hand. It’s a little ‘darker’ than popular imprints such as ‘To have and to hold.’ But we aim to please!” —Shelley Grieshop, a worker at Totally Promotional, an online retailer and manufacturer of customized wedding items. They’re not the only tradition breakers—we’re all about ditching these 8 outdated wedding etiquette rules no one seems to follow anymore.
Floral frenzy
“One of the craziest things that a client has requested was when a bride and groom asked for a floral wall the day of their wedding. Six hours before the party, they requested a flower wall no one has ever done before. We happened to be using these triangle tables and there was one we weren’t using. We took the whole mirrored tabletop, stood it up, and covered the entire thing in white flowers (that we ran around to find). We finished with two hours to spare.” —Birch Event Design, wedding floral, décor, and design experts in New York City.
Business is business
“At one of the large weddings, we had a guest who had his eyes on the phone and having dozens of calls during the entire wedding day. In the middle of the wedding reception, he asked me to urgently prepare [a] private jet from Palermo to New York.” —Anna Bessonowa, Director of Operations at Magic Day Luxury Experiences
Smile!
Joan Cinquegrani, a wedding planner at Five Grain Events, a Chicago based business got a call at 11 p.m. the night before the big day from the bride’s sister and maid of honor, saying she had knocked out a tooth trying to get a better view out of a window and needed emergency cosmetic treatment. On a Sunday. On Memorial Day weekend. After a harrowing search by the planner to find someone to perform the surgery—the hospital would treat her but couldn’t implant the tooth as that was cosmetic—she finally heard from a previous client who was a dentist that she would head into the office and perform the procedure. The maid of honor even made it back in time to get her hair and makeup done before heading back down the aisle. Good thing too—now she can laugh at one of the 26 clever wedding jokes perfect for any speech.
A remodel
One wedding planner, who asked to remain anonymous, said that her most memorable request was from a bride being married in a well known historical venue that was over 200 years old. After a tour of the venue a week before, the bride came up with the brilliant idea of the entire venue being repainted in her bridal colors. Specifically, a pink exterior, and a green interior. The bride was very disappointed when the wedding planner said no “without even asking the venue owners if they might like to do it.”
A Paw-some wedding
“One of the most memorable requests I’ve received as a wedding planner was to ensure the bride and groom’s dog made it home safely after their wedding ceremony. At first glance this should be a simple solution, a.k.a. have a family member or friend drive him back. Nope, the bride and groom did not want the guests to miss a moment of their big day, so after considering a number of ways to safely get the pooch home, we finally came up with the idea of Uber! What a funny scene this was, seeing the dog—who did I mention donned a pair of Wayfarer sunglasses—jet off in an Uber from their wedding by himself. Getting a text message photo update that the dog was in fact home safely was the best part.” —Kristine King, president, and lead event director at Kristine King Events, told Brides magazine.
Drawing blood
An anonymous wedding planner recalls a bride who had been given special earrings the morning of her wedding by her mother that had been worn by generations of brides before her. Evidently, the mother had forgotten that her daughter had never gotten her ears pierced and had given her rather superstitious daughter a speech about how every bride who had worn them had been blessed with a long and happy marriage. “The bride came to me in a panic 20 minutes before the ceremony and held out a needle. I tried to find a professional nearby but on a Sunday in a small town, there was no one to be found. As it turned out, my assistant had worked in a salon during college and had pierced ears before, and did the job five minutes before the bride walked down the aisle with an ice cube and sterilized needle a la Lindsay Lohan in The Parent Trap. Luckily, no blood got on the white dress and the bride seemed very happy about the whole thing.” Instead of getting the bride something she cannot use without physically altering her body, try one of these 17 DIY wedding gifts anyone can make.
Super-wedding
“We once had surprise superheroes burst into a wedding (mid-nuptials mind you) to surprise a groom who was a big Marvel fan.” —Randi Haber, wedding planner and director of catering at Kimpton Hotel Monaco Baltimore Inner Harbor, told Brides magazine.
A weighty issue
One wedding planner from Los Angeles was horrified when a bride asked her to send an email to two of her bridesmaids telling them that if they wished to stay in the wedding party, they needed to lose ten to 15 pounds. The wedding planner talked her out of it but wasn’t totally sure she didn’t send them emails on her own. She wasn’t the only bride worried about her bridal parties’ weights. “Alternatively, another wedding party had the opposite request. The bride asked that I find a way to overserve several of her bridesmaids at all the wedding pre-events to make them put on weight so she would look better in comparison. Another request I diplomatically refused.” Stories like this may be one of the 32 secrets wedding planners won’t tell you.
Originally Published: May 07, 2019
