Samantha Curtis is wedded to her work. Maksym - stock.adobe.com She’s wedded to her work Samantha Curtis tells me: “I do destination weddings worldwide. My grandmother was a wedding dress designer and told me her stories, showed me her designs. I became a bridal attendant, then event coordinator, then opened my own company and now we have weddings all over the world. Takes 300 hours to plan one day of events. You’re inviting everyone you know into one space and you’re making it an experience.
“These are full-scale events done from scratch. Live entertainment. Flying guests out. I’m booking vendors 18 months ahead. Budgets tripled in the past 10 years. When I started, average weddings were around $80,000. Now it can go to a million dollars.
“A wedding in Spain was really complex. Guests from the US or Canada. We coordinated those flights. They brought in a live performer — Diana Ross, who needed a full-scale complete green room. We needed to make sure that all that was in place. Plus managing the family, the bride and every groom and that the couples don’t run off. I take five to seven assistants with me on every wedding.
“One wedding wanted to bring in 10 different food trucks and have guests all try their favorite cuisines. We’ve had DJs, floral installations that cost $60,000.
“Biggest mistake was once not realizing the groom’s party needed to be managed. They surprised me by bringing in their own bottle of tequila. I had to quickly sober them up to get down the aisle. So now I have a designated assistant who monitors the groom’s party. It’s a celebratory day, and they’re gonna do what they’re gonna do.
“Also, mothers-in-law love to take control. They love to really get involved. What I do now is I try to get them involved right off of the bat.
“When I was first starting, I was loading in the floral order the bride wanted. All lovely purple florals. The mother-in-law had apparently decided that purple was not happy enough of a color for the wedding day and unbeknownst to all of us decided to order an entire florist’s worth of bright yellow florals because that’s what she preferred. So we had a nice lovely conversation.”
Mothers-in-law can be pains in the ass. We know that, but what do they do to the clothes? What if her son wants to wear shorts to a wedding?
“I mean, they’re all a little off these days,” she says.
So Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo and Halle Berry are driven. Up and down LA’s famed freeway. It’s a thrill. It’s “Crime 101.” Hemsworth’s role is robbing the rich. Insurance agent Berry’s character pays them back.
The actress says: “Women today are discarded if they’re in mid-life. Devalued. I’m on a tear to bring us back to the forefront. Many of us have struggled in the workplace. That’s something I want to make public. I want to tell it to the world.”
