Get Ready To Party — And Spend Some Money
The New Year is the time to party and recently at New York's famed Cipriani restaurant, a group of real estate brokers were hard at play. Office parties are rites of December, but the real estate party's lavishness is a sign of the times.
Parties these days are popping like never before and renowned event designer Preston Bailey is doing his part.
"I think the great thing about this party is the element of surprise, that it is in a brownstone in New York City," he said showing off some of his recent handiwork to Sunday Morning correspondent Serena Altschul.
Bailey built a tent in the backyard of this Manhattan home and created a small and sumptuous room for holiday entertainment. His team is preparing a luncheon for 42 guests.
"As you walk in the entire thing is like this, you're transported to this rich environment with a lot of richness and I love that," he said.
And so do his celebrity clients. He planned the weddings of Donald Trump and Liza Minnelli. Bailey's events are floral and opulent, and that's just the way he likes it.
"I never got into the simplicity thing," he said. "I don't know how to do simple. I love being dramatic and over the top. "
Since time immemorial, mankind has been asking "where's the party?" Ancient Rome had its share of fun. The emperor Nero entertained in a hall with a revolving ceiling which misted its guests with perfume. Louis the XIV threw extravagant feasts at Versailles.
It took a while for America to catch on, but it did. Truman Capote's Black and White Ball in 1964 is regarded as the party of that century. In 1989 Malcolm Forbes flew his guests to Morocco to celebrate his 60th birthday.
The Roman-themed birthday party that former Tyco CEO Dennis Kozlowski charged to his company cost a million dollars. Of course, events like that have made corporations party-shy, but for the rest of us, the celebration goes on.
"I think they've only gotten bigger and more elaborate in the last 20 years," Lisa Hurley, editor of Special Events magazine, said. "I think that's due to the influence of magazines such as InStyle that show readers what incredible celebrity weddings look like as well as the influence of the internet."
Not to mention television. The airwaves are filled with party and wedding shows like the Style Network's "Whose Wedding is it Anyway?" There is also MTV's outrageous hit, "My Super Sweet 16," which features teenagers whose parents are wealthy enough to throw the extravagant parties which sometimes include celebrity guest appearances.
The program is controversial, but it and other shows share a fascination with a common theme: big celebrations that cost really big money.
Weddings for the wealthy are also becoming more excessive than ever before. Couple turn to people like Sasha Souza, a prominent California wedding planner to make their special day as lavish as possible.
"Weddings today are much more elaborate and much more focused on the couple and what their style is," she said.
The style for this couple champion boxer Fernando Vargas and his bride, Martha Lopez, is nothing short of royal. The couple forked over $500,000 for the wedding.
"She wanted it to be this over the top, amazing, unforgettable, best event they've ever been to," Souza said. "And Fernando, I promised him he'd be a rock star by the end of the day, so he was happy. When you start spending that kind of money, you really get an event that is unlike any other. Unlike any other. It's your party."
Even the invitation is lavish. The invitations chosen by Vargas and Lopez are made of velvet paper and are monogrammed.
"The total cost of the invitations was about $20,000," Souza said.
The couple's two cakes cost them $14,000. Special lighting and an illuminated dance floor brought in from Spain set them back about $100,000. Place settings in a sea of silk cost about $60,000 to rent, Souza said. The couple also had an ice bar.
"A1,400 pound bar made of ice that has jewels encrusted in the ice then emblazoned with there monogram. Cost about $8,000," Souza said.
Souza also arranged for the couple to have about 3,500 rose stems and 1,000 orchid stems in the flower arrangement which will cost about $60,000. It all adds up, but there are no complaints from the groom.
"It's worth every penny to make sure that I'm able to give my wife the wedding of her dreams and our dreams and that to me is everything," Vargas said.
"You spend all of this money and it really truly is for one day," Souza said, "and the flowers die and people throw away the invitations and the ice bar is going to melt. But in that moment it is perfect for what they want and what their guests to experience."
These days, it's not just weddings that are expensive. Tutera recently planned a bar mitzvah for twins. Like other leading event planners, Tutera is something of a celebrity himself. He has his own TV show and a list of celebrity events, like the wedding of Starr Jones. But his bread and butter is an event like this, and the crowd these days is tougher than ever.
"Their guests are jaded, they've seen it, they're expecting things to be different and often they're not," Tutera said.
The bar mitzvah ran into the six figures, but it's nowhere near a record for Tutera. He produced what may be the most expensive bat mitzvah in history – a $10 million party, with a jaw-dropping list of performers.
"You had Shakira, Kenny G, that's cocktails," he said. "Then you went, walked in, you had 50 Cent, Don Henley, Stevie Nicks, Joe Walsh, Tom Petty and Aerosmith."
It may seem decadent, but Tutera says that it's about enjoying life.
"You know what? You ain't taking it with ya," Tutera said, "So if you can use it and enjoy life, and enjoy it through doing parties, I applaud you."
Enjoying life was what Tutera's client Beth Fowler had in mind when she threw a 54th birthday party in Raleigh, North Carolina for her husband Steve.
"He's a cancer survivor and I really felt so fortunate and blessed that I was allowed to have more time with him," she said. "And what a great reason to celebrate."
The Fowlers erected an enormous tent, decorated it lavishly, entertained 400 guests and watched fireworks. The birthday boy got a vintage car. Fowler said the cost hit seven figures.
"And worth every penny of it," she said. "We just wanted people to stop and think about how precious life is and to celebrate it. And you can celebrate it every day. You can celebrate it in the simplest things."