I got married two months before I came to Great Performances. And while I loved my wedding day, I can't help but admit that it would have been incredible to plan it while working for a catering and event company with dozens of connections to designers, florists, stationers, and - to top it all off - a co-ownership of the Plaza Grand Ballroom.
On Monday night, the Plaza hosted Martha Stewart Weddings 15th anniversary celebration. It was, in a word, fabulous. The ballroom was decadently decorated with chic white sofas, lucite bar stools at high white tables, and an extravagant central bar with flirtatiously colored cocktails. Over 700 hundred people filled the room, heels in stilettos, hair in chignons, all eager to sample the food stations, tweet from their blackberries, and catch a glimpse of Very Wang. You know you're at the ultimate wedding event when you glance across the room and see Colin Cowie and Mark Ingram embrace and double cheek kiss. For the bridal world, this was Fashion Week and New Years rolled into one evening.
It was incredible to be there and see the work of so many talented people who devote their professions to creating exquisite weddings. Cake mavens like Ron Ben Israel and Sylvia Weinstock displayed their confections along the ballroom's balconies. Martha Stewart editors chatted with wedding bloggers about new trends and old traditions. The whole evening was a delight and the bands (there were three of them!) brought me repeatedly to the dance floor. Martha herself was not in attendance though she was there via video projection, telling us about her love of weddings and the beautiful reception she created for her own day from "the smallest of budgets."
The field of wedding planning is undoubtedly a saturated one, and the list of must-haves and must-buys can make any bride's head spin. Most will agree that the wedding should not be the highpoint of your marriage. And yet it is a day that stands apart from all others in your life. If I could have my wedding over, what would I do differently? Oh a dozen little things. What wouldn't I have changed for the world? The first dance that my husband and I choreographed to Ray Charles "I got a woman", the processional music that my dad composed.
The wedding is just one day. But what a day it is.