With Beirut overshadowing all other cities as the wedding destination of choice for Middle Eastern couples, it is imperative to know just who is the best Lebanese wedding planner.
To make things really interesting the editorial team at Bespoke charged me with an interesting brief. I was to challenge the three best wedding planners in Lebanon with the same mission and see who offers the best wedding. A budget was set at a credit-crunched 250,000 USD, and this would have to be enough to make the most unusual and spectacular wedding for an imaginary couple and their five hundred well-to-do guests.
The groom is a 36-year old Saudi businessman and his bride is 28-year old Lebanese author from Achrafieh. While he is open-minded and adventurous, his family is fairly conservative. His extended family will travel from Riyadh to Beirut to attend the wedding, where they won’t know anyone. His fiancée is creative, well travelled and cosmopolitan, the daughter of a liberal Christian family.
I immediately got to work, getting touch with Weddings R Us, Matisse and Caractère (by Alain Hadife). All are exclusive and promise to make your wildest nuptial dreams come true. Getting a hold of Matisse and Weddings R Us was easy enough, but Caractère tells me (after numerous phone calls) that they will only participate if the article is exclusively about them – apparently their company policy. I am not sure why they are worried; a cashed-up ‘bridezilla’ on the warpath would probably be much harder to deal with than this journalist trying to write a story. In any case I rule them out for bad behaviour. One down, two to go.
I start with the planners named after one of the art-world’s greatest, Matisse (he too was ahead of his time, they tell me), located in the heart of Gemmayzeh. Indeed, from the outside, Matisse could easily be mistaken for a trendy art gallery. A dynamic, hip atmosphere surrounds you when you enter the space. The owners, Tania, Lynn and Johaina, are warm, easy-going and welcoming. You feel as if you’ve just entered their living room when they sit you down at a nice big wooden dining table.
Speaking a mix of French, English and Arabic, the Matisse girls refer to themselves as a boutique de luxe. Luckily, they tell me that my budget of 500 USD per person is quite okay. The minimum they can work with is 200 USD per person but anything less would stifle their creativity and prevent them from thinking ‘outside the box’.
They have clear ideas, however, about what has no place in that box. They won’t accommodate a bride who wants to make her grand entrance as a pearl stepping out of a giant, tacky clamshell. To my surprise, this is apparently not an uncommon request. A chintzy, gold, Garden of Eden theme is also not their thing. Their work is light and minimalistic. They organise chic, elegant weddings, no circus, no clowns. Tania tells me they refuse clients if their style doesn’t fit theirs or if there is no chemistry. Established only two years ago, they’ve carved out something of a niche in the market.
The next thing I know, I am the one being interviewed. “What does the husband do in Saudi? What do they have in common as a couple?” they quiz me. “Are they both adventurous? Nice! So they like going on trips? Safaris, that kind of thing?” They are nodding their heads and frantically jotting down notes. “Is there a colour that symbolises this couple? When you close your eyes, can you see the wedding?”
I feel I have just landed on the sofa of a shrink. They want to get to know you; understand you; get inside your head. There is even a psychologist on hand to pick up on the ‘non-verbal’ communication. You might say red is your favourite colour, but perhaps your fiancée secretly hates it. Don’t you worry; Sarah will pick up on that.
Next I drive to Jdeideh to meet with Weddings R Us. The owner, Ghada Blanco, is also completely unimpressed by my budget (I personally can think of a few nice things that I could do with the cash). I explain that 250,000 USD is less than the Saudi groom would have coughed up under normal circumstances, but things are tight given the global financial crisis. She quips that Saudi men are not suffering from the credit crisis yet. Mildly ashamed, I reply that we will just have to try to make it work.
Ghada’s first questions are about the bride. She is her biggest inspiration. “Is this a classical or modern bride?” she asks. “What are her tastes like?” She tells me that she doesn’t often deal with the groom while planning a wedding – he generally “just wants his bride to be happy”. Clearly many men feel safer on the sidelines.
Ghada is used to working with Saudis and tells me they tend to go for modern weddings these days. “Not overdone but simplified. No heavy décor anymore. It is all about elevation, stencil work, bar-style tables, light-boxes, mirrors, trendy elements, a loungey feel.” She speaks fast and with her hands. I don’t understand all the terms she is throwing about but she certainly knows what she is talking about - she has catered for the rich and famous for sixteen years now.
She reminds me that it is the jaffe, the passing around of cookies, chocolates and little sweets that makes a wedding Saudi. “I’d introduce Saudi music for the entrance and do a nice jaffe. We’d research in Geneva and other European cities what the newest jaffe trends are.” Sending a delegation of Lebanese wedding planners to Geneva to ‘research’ cookies seems a little ridiculous to me, but I continue nodding my head. This is serious business.
Ghada is full of nice suggestions about how to combine the two families. She explains the seating arrangement as well as the scheduling – saying that keeping the program “tight and condense” is crucial. “Is it an outdoor wedding? That’s great but be careful, humidity ruins the hair.” I guess that’s the last thing you need when you’ve just paid 250,000USD. Get me the best hairstylist in the country so we can avoid this, please.
Ghada’s ideas flow thick and fast. She suggests dividing the reception area by making six cubicles out of voile curtains. “You’d get a special effect; you see and you don’t see. It is great to have this outdoors,” she says. “The wind will allow the curtains to move; a bit mystical. Maybe some white chesterfield sets?” she adds. “And a lot of candlelight surrounded by live, lounge music.” It all sounds great, but now I’m worried about the bride’s hair.
Ghada recommends a George V style of flower arrangements in glass containers. “I’d introduce fuchsia elements,” she says. “Did you say the brides’ favourite colour is blue? Not so easy. We could do coloured orchids, they look real.” I interrupt her and say she might not like blue flowers. “Excellent! Then we go for pinks!”
My head is spinning while Ghada talks and talks. I feel I’ve entered a different world. I hear her say it would be good to have fire elements: fire-breathers and fire burners. Elevated areas and big screens with special effects are all within my budget. She suggests a hydraulic system, a catwalk that becomes a staircase for the entrance of the bride and candles floating in the air when it’s time to cut the cake.
I am silly enough to ask for some pictures of previous weddings to get a better idea. Little do I know; exclusive wedding planners never reveal pictures of their precious, coveted work. Am I taking a gamble here with my 250,000 USD, I wonder? Ghada explains that every event is unique; her weddings are tailor made. “Don’t forget, everyone should go away thinking: wow, excellent,” she exclaims. And she is right. That’s exactly what I am looking for.
A few days later I am back in Gemmayzeh. The Matisse girls were up brainstorming until two in the morning and have prepared a series of ‘mood-boards’. They unveil a presentation on a flat-screen TV. “We have a couple of outdoor-venues to propose to you but we’ve made a floor plan that fits the set-up of Ociel, a great outdoor place,” says Tania.
I see a round msharabieh catwalk surrounding an enormous round VIP table, a platform of stairs leading down to the catwalk, rectangular tables for the guests, a lap pool with a dance floor constructed over it, a stage for performers. It’s amazing.
The catwalk is lit from the inside to glow an amber colour. I am told it symbolises the ‘circle of life’ where the bride and groom come together to shape their own world. The VIP table has twelve chandeliers above it, hanging from a four-metre structure. They hang on different levels and are all dripping with candles. Now this is luxury.
Two lounge areas have been created on either side of the room. On the one side there is a bar with alcoholic drinks and on the other is a non-alcoholic bar serving Arabic favourites such as blackberry juice, fresh lemonade, jileb and tea. There are shishas and even a woman hand rolling cigars. They’ve thought of lots of nice details. The zoning, for example, will be done by different coloured shisha heads.
They suggest laminated white tables, without tablecloths – apparently rather risqué but very much in right now. I find it slightly difficult to visualise the sand wall ‘with a rain of golden powder’ falling down a full length of plexi-glass. Part of the wall is magnetic, so the Saudi desert sand (we wouldn’t want anyone feeling homesick) will from time to time stick to form a sentence in Arabic calligraphy.
In case the parents find it a little too funky, the Matisse girls assure me that they are on hand to convince them otherwise. If anyone could convince a Saudi mother-in-law of the virtues of the bride making an entrance on a luminous catwalk - it would be these charming women.
Meeting these wedding planners is a fascinating experience. Both Matisse and Wedding R Us know exactly what they are doing and are more than willing and able to help you design the wedding of your dreams. They plan everything meticulously and will relieve you of much of the stress and panic that weddings entail. They’ll even tell you the date to send out your invitation cards. You will be given a detailed timeline after signing your contract.
It is important to pick the wedding planner that suits you most. I am told this is an intense process where you really get to know each other. I think many couples would feel extremely comfortable at Weddings R Us. With years of experience you simply can’t go wrong here. They cater for a variety of tastes and are perfect for international couples. However, I would personally take the risk and go with Matisse. My new girlfriends seem to be so talented. I like their style; I like the way they talk to me, their eye for detail. They say they are able to make the impossible possible. I would love to see what they could do. In their hands, I know this wedding will be unique. We have a winner.
CONTACT:
Matisse
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Weddings R Us
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Charactere
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