Speaker 1: My name is Jeffrey Z Carrien and you're listening to
Speaker 1: four Courses with Jeffrey Z Carrian from my Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: In four courses, I'll be taking you along for the
Speaker 1: ride while I talk with the top talent of our time.
Speaker 1: In each conversation, I focus on four different areas from
Speaker 1: my guests life and career. And during those four courses,
Speaker 1: I'm going to dig deep and uncover new insights and
Speaker 1: inspirations that we can all use to fuel ourselves to
Speaker 1: push forward. My guest for this episode is an internationally
Speaker 1: renowned party and event planner. She's planned weddings and other
Speaker 1: events for none other than Billy, Joel lebron and Savannah James,
Speaker 1: and the Rockefeller family and also yours. Truly, and according
Speaker 1: to many, she's the best in the world at it.
Speaker 1: Without further delay, let's get into my conversation with Marcy Bloom. Hi, Marcy.
Speaker 1: For our first course, I wanted to understand Marcy's roots
Speaker 1: as a kid growing up in the Bronx. It turns
Speaker 1: out that her understanding of what made a successful party
Speaker 1: started in the kitchen with their mom. When you were
Speaker 1: a kid, I know your mom was a great hostess,
Speaker 1: like what was what were the things in the house.
Speaker 1: Like I say, around six or seven years old, I
Speaker 1: remember my the smells and I asked everybody this question,
Speaker 1: what was what's cooking? What is the lingering smell in
Speaker 1: your household? That was food related and that you can
Speaker 1: remember till today. Probably brisket for the holidays, brisket or
Speaker 1: my mother's big holiday was Thanksgiving. And my mother was
Speaker 1: not only extraordinary hostess, she really was an extraordinary cook.
Speaker 1: And my father had delusions of it being a kosher house.
Speaker 1: So my mother did her best because she wasn't raised
Speaker 1: that way, but he was, so that she took courses
Speaker 1: from Simone Beck and James Beard and all of those
Speaker 1: people other than Julia, but but simonas who know as
Speaker 1: Julia's you know, writing and cooking partner, and uh, she
Speaker 1: would come home and try to make these extraordinary French
Speaker 1: recipes kosher, which is hilarious because there's not one piece
Speaker 1: of meat that doesn't have cream or butter or anything,
Speaker 1: which is her boating. But she did a pretty good job.
Speaker 1: And she was a great baker as well. So I
Speaker 1: grew up with the television pulled into the kitchen, you know,
Speaker 1: to watch Julia Child as we were having dinner and
Speaker 1: so to me a long answer to a short question.
Speaker 1: But I think you know, when I started my business,
Speaker 1: people would say, well, you know, especially Visa B weddings,
Speaker 1: well really who nobody expects food to be good at weddings.
Speaker 1: And I was so horrified by that. I was like,
Speaker 1: how could you have an event spend this kind of
Speaker 1: money and that kind of time and I think that
Speaker 1: the food is it doesn't matter. Maybe it was completely
Speaker 1: irrational to me because that's how I was raised. The
Speaker 1: party always started with the food. It had to look pretty,
Speaker 1: but it always started with the fruit. So your mom's
Speaker 1: cooking brisket, you remember, the briskets smell in the house,
Speaker 1: by the way, with the spices and some vinegar and
Speaker 1: stuff could last a long time, and I would assume
Speaker 1: I'm still washing that out of my hair. But you know, so,
Speaker 1: I mean, so that's very It's that's you know, I'm
Speaker 1: getting hints here now. So Simon Beck verified French food
Speaker 1: Julia Child as sort of like a co dependent in
Speaker 1: the household. To Kosh your parents. Your dad is a
Speaker 1: wholesale supplier, so he got the food wholesale. So you
Speaker 1: guys could spend a lot of cash on stuff because
Speaker 1: it was cheap. Yeah, he was a wholesale food supplier.
Speaker 1: And as I said, I think I was eighteen the
Speaker 1: first time I saw a number two can of tuna,
Speaker 1: because I thought everything came in number ten tins, so
Speaker 1: I thought it was for a doll's house. I was like,
Speaker 1: what is that cute little two out scann of tuna?
Speaker 1: So you could experiment and it was fine because you
Speaker 1: had like it was an endless supply. What a wonderful
Speaker 1: thing exactly. And my other was the only person. You know,
Speaker 1: we lived in Riverdale. We lived in a nice apartment,
Speaker 1: but it certainly wasn't palatial. But she had two freezers
Speaker 1: and most of my friends too freezers. She would bake
Speaker 1: and freeze and bacon. And she was a full time teacher,
Speaker 1: so she did this all in her after hours. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you're very much you're entertained, and you had this,
Speaker 1: I mean, that's a rarefied sort of thing, right to
Speaker 1: Jewish parents raising someone with a distinctively French motive OPERANDAI
Speaker 1: sort of And was your mom the entertainer that you are?
Speaker 1: Was she sort of like was she at all inclined
Speaker 1: to have large parties. That was she just someone that
Speaker 1: would just have a five or six top over. No,
Speaker 1: she would, you know, she would with my father's family.
Speaker 1: We would split the holidays, so my mother's holiday was Thanksgiving,
Speaker 1: and so they would probably be twenty twenty two people
Speaker 1: and she would be working on it for a really
Speaker 1: long time, cutting out recipes you know you didn't download
Speaker 1: them then, and clipping things, and buying new cookbooks and
Speaker 1: taking them out of the the library and deciding on the menu.
Speaker 1: And then as I got older and was able to participate,
Speaker 1: she and I would do it together and come up
Speaker 1: with you know, like four different kinds of cranberry something
Speaker 1: that we would serve. We really had a lot of fun,
Speaker 1: a lot of fun doing it. And this is before
Speaker 1: I went to culinary school. So what was so they
Speaker 1: give me a menu, give me a very successful turkey
Speaker 1: cooking tip that you still use and wait did it
Speaker 1: derive from? Was it you? Your mom? Thing? She went
Speaker 1: through a lot of different permutations on how to cook turkey.
Speaker 1: I remember about ten years ago, all my friends were
Speaker 1: deep frying, and then they were not pickling, brining, and
Speaker 1: then you know, every time he goes away, go, oh,
Speaker 1: my cocaine, just roast turkey and leave us alone. But
Speaker 1: but she at the end of the day it was
Speaker 1: the long and slow I think it was maybe three
Speaker 1: hundred degrees maybe, you know, and it was in there,
Speaker 1: and it was a giant thing, and it was in there.
Speaker 1: You have to take all the other shelves out of
Speaker 1: the oven. Nothing else could go at the same time, right,
Speaker 1: and it would it would be in there for many, many,
Speaker 1: many hours. So she'd get up at six am put
Speaker 1: it in, and you know, if Thanksgiving was it too,
Speaker 1: it would be coming out long enough to you know,
Speaker 1: sit and and be ready. How did you bake the
Speaker 1: other stuff? Was the day before? You'd have to do,
Speaker 1: you know, to get the turkey out, put everything else
Speaker 1: in the oven. And then later on I think we've
Speaker 1: got one of those faba ware or whatever, you know,
Speaker 1: second ovens. And it's so funny that you say that,
Speaker 1: because I am in the midst I'm doing my kitchen
Speaker 1: for the first time ever, and I've always wanted to
Speaker 1: do this, and one of my clients was kind enough
Speaker 1: to give me a donation because I said I wanted
Speaker 1: a wolf ovens, so I have. So I'm finally doing
Speaker 1: it and all I care about is having I want
Speaker 1: to wall ovens and an under oven, because I yeah,
Speaker 1: that's all I care about. Well, you need it. You
Speaker 1: need it to entertain. You have to have a warming oven.
Speaker 1: You're gonna have a finishing oven, and you gotta have
Speaker 1: the main event of it. Otherwise, you know, it's it's
Speaker 1: what I have at this at my house too. In
Speaker 1: our second course, I had to find out what drew
Speaker 1: Marcy into the planning business. After studying acting in high school,
Speaker 1: she moved to a farming commune in Vermont when she
Speaker 1: was sixteen, and it quickly went south. I had been
Speaker 1: living on a commune. It broke up. I didn't know
Speaker 1: what I was going to do. So I you know,
Speaker 1: I went and sat in my parents apartment and watched
Speaker 1: Let's Make a Deal Chris a year and my parents
Speaker 1: are like, well, this is not okay. One thing, we
Speaker 1: don't see you for five years, but then you come
Speaker 1: back and you take over the house. And so my
Speaker 1: brother was living in Paris, short story, and he said,
Speaker 1: why don't you apply to court in Blue because you
Speaker 1: love to cook, And anyway, they accepted me. I went
Speaker 1: to court in Blow and I was it was like
Speaker 1: I was reborn. I was never very talented chef, but
Speaker 1: I love to cook. And it was and you only
Speaker 1: get that, in my opinion, a couple of times in
Speaker 1: your life. Really that that true love and joy for something,
Speaker 1: and you know that is really a gift from the
Speaker 1: universe because you can't get enough of it. You know,
Speaker 1: you go to sleep with stacks of cookbooks next to
Speaker 1: your bed, and and you know post It's and I
Speaker 1: mean gourmet magazine. I would read it. You know, it
Speaker 1: was like Anna Karenina. I would just like every single
Speaker 1: you know, every single recipe, every single aspect. I mean,
Speaker 1: it was just I could not get enough and and
Speaker 1: and it wasn't as you know, it wasn't very chic.
Speaker 1: Then you know, it was nice to be a cook.
Speaker 1: And even when I went to c I a later,
Speaker 1: you know, the chefs would say, which of course now
Speaker 1: they would never have the nerve to say, you know,
Speaker 1: you're going to make such a great wife, because you know,
Speaker 1: I think it's fascinating that, you know, I think you
Speaker 1: and I went to UH and we really found our
Speaker 1: calling in the food world more hospitality than myself. But
Speaker 1: basically we're in theater. This is theater. This the theater
Speaker 1: of the absurd, actually, but it's it is theater rights.
Speaker 1: And I think that you, as a as a world
Speaker 1: class event planner, must be asked, I want the most absurd,
Speaker 1: the most incredible, and you are like relying on your
Speaker 1: balance of experience just starting out. What was it that
Speaker 1: made you sort of say, listen, I don't want to
Speaker 1: do cut the cakes, the bride takes the cake to
Speaker 1: blah blah blah bl You know that, it's like I'll
Speaker 1: puntil forty years ago, it was the same, you know,
Speaker 1: you just it was number one or two in the
Speaker 1: blue book. Check the box, send me the check in,
Speaker 1: show up on time, and do you want the chicken
Speaker 1: or the prime rib? You know, when did you when
Speaker 1: did you say you know what this is? I'm going
Speaker 1: to shake things up. I guess I think I was
Speaker 1: too stupid to even know that things needed to be
Speaker 1: shook up. I didn't understand that that's how it went,
Speaker 1: you know. And I was so into food and I
Speaker 1: was so into hospitality and my personal experience. People are
Speaker 1: spending let's say when I started there, spending a couple
Speaker 1: hundred thousand. Now, you know, many millions of dollars. If
Speaker 1: you're spending that kind of money and all you're looking
Speaker 1: at is is the decor you're missing, if not half
Speaker 1: three quarters of the rest of it. So how do
Speaker 1: you bring that experience? What makes it special? And I
Speaker 1: you know, borrows steel plagiarized. I mean the first time
Speaker 1: you go to Alan Ducas's restaurant in Monico, when you
Speaker 1: see that bread cart, You're like, Okay, why can't we
Speaker 1: do that for a party? Why can't we do that
Speaker 1: for a wedding? Why not? And you know, cater resorts,
Speaker 1: I'm like a big, big I was like, no, that's
Speaker 1: not an answer, Like why not? Why not try it?
Speaker 1: And you see the delight on guest spaces like I
Speaker 1: can't believe we have bread cart or I can't believe
Speaker 1: you know some and thought to give me a place
Speaker 1: card and seat me next to people who I would
Speaker 1: find interesting rather than default with my wife, husband, significant other.
Speaker 1: Like how cool is that someone actually thought about my experience?
Speaker 1: You know, it sounds like you've got a lot of
Speaker 1: a lot of these eccentric cities from your mom your mind,
Speaker 1: didn't Your mom used to serve like different kinds of
Speaker 1: scotch if everyone liked different scotch. She would serve. I
Speaker 1: read a story about that. It sounds like she was
Speaker 1: catering to each person, which is kind of brilliant. And
Speaker 1: I'm so, you know, look on occasion, I've had clients,
Speaker 1: luckily not for many years, and you know who would
Speaker 1: be just serve good wine at our table, or just
Speaker 1: serve the champagne at our table. And I know that
Speaker 1: probably is extraordinary to you, but it happens all the time.
Speaker 1: And I would be if I were a guest and
Speaker 1: walk past your table and so the DP on your
Speaker 1: table and I was drinking, even if it was moved.
Speaker 1: It's not the point. The fact that you care so
Speaker 1: little about the guests experience would be horror afying to me.
Speaker 1: And and to your point. My you know, we I
Speaker 1: had two uncles and two other men who were always
Speaker 1: part of the family would come to these things that
Speaker 1: my mother would go out every year and she would
Speaker 1: buy four different kinds of scotch and and the same
Speaker 1: thing coke and pepsi. And when I got married, my
Speaker 1: now former stepson wouldn't eat turkey or anything. She would
Speaker 1: go and get the absolute best steak, you know, she
Speaker 1: let it rest and it would broil it for him. Right,
Speaker 1: But that's just how she rolled and I just never
Speaker 1: saw it any other way. You know. Luckily for me
Speaker 1: and my clients, you started around eight six, I believe
Speaker 1: really doing it for like seriously, I mean, that is
Speaker 1: virtue that there's a lot of very high profile weddings
Speaker 1: that went on before. What would people do before that
Speaker 1: was sort of it was considered over the top, pre
Speaker 1: Marcy Bloom events. What was over the top and was
Speaker 1: very supposed predictable in the middle of the tay, you know,
Speaker 1: and some of my colleagues and some of my very
Speaker 1: talented designer friends, that's what they would do. It would
Speaker 1: just be as if someone vomited flowers or you know.
Speaker 1: And my line that I always say is, you know,
Speaker 1: if you're only looking at that when you're planning an event,
Speaker 1: particularly a wedding, it's like you took Brad Pitt or
Speaker 1: Angelina Jolie home and they just lay there. That's so true,
Speaker 1: and I have many events I've gone to. It's it's
Speaker 1: suffocating the amount of flowers and you can't see you
Speaker 1: can't see anyone, you can't see the person across from you.
Speaker 1: There's no subtlety, there's no it's just one shot. There's
Speaker 1: no art you know, artistry, there's no there's no theater,
Speaker 1: no for our third course. I knew that Marcy could
Speaker 1: share some incredibly event planning insights. I wanted to know
Speaker 1: what goes through her head as she balances her big
Speaker 1: picture vision for an event with her ongoing checklist of
Speaker 1: small tasks. She said, it all boils down to one
Speaker 1: important shift in her perspective. You have to walk it
Speaker 1: through as if you're a guest, not as if you're
Speaker 1: the host or a bride or a groom, because you're
Speaker 1: always gonna get taken care of. You are a guest.
Speaker 1: From the moment you pull up in your uber or
Speaker 1: you're driving your car. What's going on is someone opening
Speaker 1: the car door? Is uh someone escorting you inside or
Speaker 1: to the place to give your coat away, which, by
Speaker 1: the way, one of the things makes me cuckoo is
Speaker 1: lines for the coat room. You have to have runners.
Speaker 1: You have to have people just take your coat and
Speaker 1: give you a ticket and they can worry about it
Speaker 1: in the back of the house, even if it's mayhem,
Speaker 1: which it most often is. I don't care. But when's
Speaker 1: your first drink and what is it? What are you
Speaker 1: listening to what are the lights? What makes you feel
Speaker 1: that someone's happy that you are there? Specifically you are there,
Speaker 1: is um someone greeting you, even if it's not the
Speaker 1: host and hostess. Who are you know, presumably too busy,
Speaker 1: especially that your paths get married. But someone from my team,
Speaker 1: someone from another hospitality team, and then what happens? Are
Speaker 1: you confused about where to go? Are you confused about
Speaker 1: where the restrooms are? Is someone standing in the vest
Speaker 1: of you when you leave the restroom? Don't let me
Speaker 1: show you where the dining room is, or let me
Speaker 1: show you where the coculator, all the things that you
Speaker 1: know people are. They don't want to be embarrassed. They
Speaker 1: don't like to feel insecure, certainly not when they're arriving
Speaker 1: at an event. So you want to mitigate any confusion
Speaker 1: about where they're going, who there with. You don't want
Speaker 1: someone on a line for hours looking for their escort card,
Speaker 1: which makes people panic because they think that maybe there
Speaker 1: was a mistake and they're not on that table. When
Speaker 1: you see people's eyes, you see them pale. So you
Speaker 1: always have people there with the iPads. Let me just
Speaker 1: just tell me your name, don't bother looking for that
Speaker 1: are all handed to you. Later you will have to
Speaker 1: be sort of, you know, nurtured and nestled around it
Speaker 1: every single moment. So and then when you plan the
Speaker 1: movement of the evening, well, I want to get my
Speaker 1: first dance out of the way because I'm really nervous.
Speaker 1: Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Okay, but if
Speaker 1: you get your first dance out of the way, and
Speaker 1: then I thought, and then we'll just sit down. But
Speaker 1: that's not fair to people, because once you start dancing,
Speaker 1: people want to dance. So even though that looks to
Speaker 1: you like it would make you most comfortable, why don't
Speaker 1: we look about what you would feel as a guest.
Speaker 1: And when I worked with difficult people who don't want
Speaker 1: to say it but really don't care about what what
Speaker 1: happens with the guests, I will say, well, you know,
Speaker 1: I've never met anybody, bridegroom, host, hostess who's happy when
Speaker 1: their guests are not happy. So why don't we Why
Speaker 1: don't we try to turn it a round and see
Speaker 1: the guest experience. First, We're going to take care of you.
Speaker 1: You are not the issue. It's the rest of these people.
Speaker 1: So in other words, it's basically, you want to seduce
Speaker 1: the guests. It's not about the gut throwing a party
Speaker 1: for the guests, and the bride and groom have the
Speaker 1: privilege of throwing a party. Kind of turn it on
Speaker 1: the tail, right, And I don't think a lot of
Speaker 1: people think of it like that. The same way, if
Speaker 1: you're doing, you know, a rehearsal dinner, it's it's uh,
Speaker 1: you know, classic. Now it's a little trite to do
Speaker 1: a montage of some sort, you know, almost like a
Speaker 1: Borman's vote. Like photographs, and I'm always saying that people
Speaker 1: include as many photos of the other people in the room.
Speaker 1: Nobody wants to look at your photos unless it's your grandmother,
Speaker 1: right for more than three minutes. But when I'm including,
Speaker 1: oh my god, look that's when we were in the
Speaker 1: Amalfi Coast together, that it reminds people why they're there,
Speaker 1: why you have them there, And it's just, you know,
Speaker 1: so such an easy thing to do, and it's not
Speaker 1: the narcissism of these events is what is poison and
Speaker 1: it doesn't have to be. And people as often because
Speaker 1: people aren't thinking, not that they don't care, they're just
Speaker 1: not thinking. Yeah, And your job is to sort of
Speaker 1: focus them on stuff they would never think of, because
Speaker 1: you are really throwing an event. It is not you're
Speaker 1: not you're not marrying them. They're getting married, but you're
Speaker 1: throwing them an event to commemorate that. That's everything is
Speaker 1: that guest experience. It's like, if they're not seduced, the
Speaker 1: party is gonna suck, exactly. And you could spend you know,
Speaker 1: you could be serving troubles that were just you know,
Speaker 1: flown in from Alba over the most extraordinary pasta. It
Speaker 1: doesn't matter unless they feel nurtured and wanted and part
Speaker 1: of this community that you're creating. Even if it's just
Speaker 1: for the night, it's not gonna fly, not gonna fly.
Speaker 1: And it's really what you said is really important. I
Speaker 1: think a lot of people don't understand. Like when you
Speaker 1: have a restaurant, you know, we have practice nights and
Speaker 1: then we we launch right, and then we launch and
Speaker 1: then we every day we like trundlet along. We try
Speaker 1: to do what we're supposed to do. We do it well,
Speaker 1: once in a while we stumble, and then the next
Speaker 1: day we do it better. With a wedding, with an event,
Speaker 1: people are spending millions of dollars. You basically have ninety
Speaker 1: minutes to get it right or your your reputation is
Speaker 1: like shot. It's that no one's coming back tomorrow. I mean,
Speaker 1: the worst thing that someone could say is like that
Speaker 1: was nice. Right. Someone once told me you can spend
Speaker 1: as much money as you want, and no one is
Speaker 1: going to talk about anything other than how much shrimp
Speaker 1: there was at the table at the buffet table standing
Speaker 1: by the kitchen, right, exactly, No one's gonna that's what.
Speaker 1: That's all I care about, you know. So I gotta
Speaker 1: I gotta ask these questions because I know we all
Speaker 1: we've had, like you know, things didn't go well and
Speaker 1: all that. How do you pull out of a disaster?
Speaker 1: Have you had some close calls where I'm not talking
Speaker 1: about lightning hitting or rain hitting. I mean, that's just
Speaker 1: like a way it is. I'm talking about like clients
Speaker 1: who are just one step away from, you know, being
Speaker 1: pushed into moving traffic. I mean I've had it. I've
Speaker 1: had it often. I certainly had it much worse when
Speaker 1: I was younger in my business, when I had less gravitas.
Speaker 1: I'm a little more obnoxious now if they do that,
Speaker 1: But I wanted. You know, we have in our office
Speaker 1: a giant blown up copy of an email from a client,
Speaker 1: and this is this is really interesting. I was trying
Speaker 1: to create a very different kind of dining scenario, which
Speaker 1: i'll explain too quickly, and I just I couldn't grasp it.
Speaker 1: They wanted to do, of course, served food almost like
Speaker 1: dim sum, but they didn't want to seat people at
Speaker 1: regular tables, and it was just very, very difficult. And finally,
Speaker 1: and the bride's father, who is a tough cookie, we're
Speaker 1: now friends, but man, every day he called me, He's like,
Speaker 1: I can't believe this, Like, you know, like, where's the numbers,
Speaker 1: Where's it this? I said, It's not that I'm not
Speaker 1: working on you, I just I cannot get the concept.
Speaker 1: And finally, like in the middle of the night, I
Speaker 1: had this epiphany, and we've designed it basically after what's
Speaker 1: it called him in the Breakers that restaurant where the
Speaker 1: tables are twenty eight inches high instead of thirty inches high.
Speaker 1: And consequently you can actually have a full meal sitting
Speaker 1: on a couch without putting it on your lap, because
Speaker 1: you can actually lean on the table and cut and eat.
Speaker 1: It's it's extraordinary teeny little detail that changes everything. And
Speaker 1: then we sat people in like pods or lounges as
Speaker 1: opposed to tables, so like you know, there's two couches
Speaker 1: to set teas that we figured out and then and
Speaker 1: that's how And it was one of the best weddings
Speaker 1: I've ever done. And I have an email from the
Speaker 1: father of the bride, may a couple, may a couple,
Speaker 1: maya Coppa. I cannot believe you know you people are
Speaker 1: extraordinary And and I said to him, I said, it's
Speaker 1: not that you were wrong. I could understand you being nervous.
Speaker 1: But I always say to people now, I say to
Speaker 1: my clients, I was like, don't ask to see my
Speaker 1: homework because I'm not going to show you the long division.
Speaker 1: You just just count on the fact that it's going
Speaker 1: to be wonderful. It just sometimes it takes me a
Speaker 1: while to get there. And it's not you know, it's
Speaker 1: just for lack of inspiration, not for lack of trying. No.
Speaker 1: And it's also what you said was really crucial there
Speaker 1: is that the skill set that you need to have
Speaker 1: now versus forty years ago is extraordinary. I mean, you're
Speaker 1: you're you're a communicator, you're a swingari, you're a you're
Speaker 1: a chef, you're a psychotherapist, you're a hostage negotiator, epidemiologist.
Speaker 1: And I'm also and to be an expert on MERV
Speaker 1: thirteen and hep A filters as of last week. As recently. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've been adding every year to my resume. It's extraordinary.
Speaker 1: I'm a technical engineer and an epidemiologist. I would think, though,
Speaker 1: that these skills set of someone like yourself, because I
Speaker 1: know how rare it is. There can't be too many
Speaker 1: people that do what you do with sort of the
Speaker 1: background that you've come about it with. I mean, I
Speaker 1: mean you have to have like real, you know, balls
Speaker 1: of steel to listen to these people. Because I have
Speaker 1: the same people with my restaurant. I don't know how
Speaker 1: you deal with them. How do you deal with difficult
Speaker 1: these difficult people that have money And I don't mean
Speaker 1: that money and difficulty go together. Sometimes they do, sometimes
Speaker 1: sometimes they don't. But how do you deal with someone
Speaker 1: who thinks they know everything? I'll tell you there's two
Speaker 1: different possibilities here. And I've had a bunch of difficult
Speaker 1: clients who actually we're smarter than I am, and that's
Speaker 1: a different kind of uh obnoxious. I mean we did
Speaker 1: let's say, you know, Donnie Deutsch's fiftieth birthday, right, and
Speaker 1: he was always you know, Marcy, what about this? And
Speaker 1: I would because he's so obnoxious. At the end of
Speaker 1: the day, he taught me a lot, you know, so
Speaker 1: you have to be I think arrogance, as you know,
Speaker 1: is basically you know, the killer of maybe you know
Speaker 1: just about everybody, but certainly any entrepreneur. I think my
Speaker 1: lack maybe my my personal insecurity and my lack of
Speaker 1: that kind of arrogance has really stood me well. So
Speaker 1: when it's difficult people, I really have to think for
Speaker 1: a second before I before i'd be like screw, you
Speaker 1: have to be like, wait a minute, do they know
Speaker 1: something that maybe I haven't learned. Half the time, my
Speaker 1: filter is I'm soon they're going mortgage payments, trip to Italy.
Speaker 1: You know that's sometimes that's the only way to get
Speaker 1: through it, right. You know, you can't sell anything just
Speaker 1: based on my being obnoxious. I have to let people
Speaker 1: make their own session. At the end of the day,
Speaker 1: it's their wedding, it's their party, it's their money. I
Speaker 1: will never say, but how could you ever that's not
Speaker 1: my business is to be a chameleon and make their
Speaker 1: experience their experience as fabulous as it can be. I
Speaker 1: am not in the business of telling people what to
Speaker 1: do unless it pertains to safety or you know, just
Speaker 1: outright stupidity, like no, you can't make your guests walk
Speaker 1: thirty blocks. You have to do transportation. It's just not nice,
Speaker 1: you I I have. I would imagine the conversations when
Speaker 1: you're brought into someone says, we want to we don't
Speaker 1: get married, we want to hire you. This is what
Speaker 1: we want. That first conversation until the wedding must be
Speaker 1: like a remarkable sneak peek into their life question and
Speaker 1: I could tell you, maybe within nine chance of who's
Speaker 1: going to last and who is on occasion. I'm wrong,
Speaker 1: but but certainly the process of planning a wedding is
Speaker 1: extremely indicative of the inner workings of their relationship. For sure. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you have some rules you taught me, like one of
Speaker 1: the rules of a good Give me some timing issues,
Speaker 1: because people get lost in weddings and it just drags
Speaker 1: on and it's just an awful Like give me the
Speaker 1: rules of the road. Cocktail hour should be around an
Speaker 1: hour unless you know, if you're doing an Orthodox Jewish wedding,
Speaker 1: for example, there's all these other rituals involved that are
Speaker 1: in the contail hour, so an hour and a half.
Speaker 1: But what it shouldn't be is the guests should not
Speaker 1: be kept from being seated because the bride and groom
Speaker 1: were taking their photographs like that, really, and so I
Speaker 1: don't care what they have to do too, you know,
Speaker 1: truncate their shot list. But absolutely you can't because that
Speaker 1: pauses not only drunk and miserable people, but resentment. You know, yeah,
Speaker 1: our cocktail, then what? And then I think dinner service.
Speaker 1: I mean, my favorite party, if I were getting married again,
Speaker 1: would be an hour and twenty minutes. Is pretty much
Speaker 1: three course dinner, that's it. Background music, fabulous background music,
Speaker 1: not elevator music, something clever, innovative, and then kick ass
Speaker 1: dancing after that. So you have people who don't love
Speaker 1: to dance, or people who want to drink good wines,
Speaker 1: eat good food, talk to the people at their table,
Speaker 1: get an hour and twenty minutes to do that, and
Speaker 1: the kids as soon as they're finishing, and get to
Speaker 1: have this crazy, fabulous dance party. And I think it
Speaker 1: makes everyone happy. So two and a half hours, three
Speaker 1: hours max. And what's the rule of the bride and
Speaker 1: the groom going to see everyone? If you have three
Speaker 1: hundred people, how could they possibly spend If they spend
Speaker 1: a minute with each person, that's three hundred minutes and
Speaker 1: there's no there's no time. What do you do? It's ridiculous.
Speaker 1: So I remember, you know, when I started one of
Speaker 1: my first big jobs, maybe three years in, was Nelson
Speaker 1: Rockefeller's granddaughter, and I remember Stephen Rockefeller, the bride's father,
Speaker 1: and listing on a receiving line. Of course, I had
Speaker 1: never heard of such a thing. I had to go
Speaker 1: look up Emily post Well. I was like, I had
Speaker 1: no idea what the hell he was talking about. And
Speaker 1: I was so perplexed. I was like, well, the three
Speaker 1: guess right, a minute, thirty seconds endless. And as it
Speaker 1: turns out, it was endless. But in a social you know,
Speaker 1: certain social strata, they were used to it. They were like, well,
Speaker 1: get on the receiving high. You know, it's like Jesus.
Speaker 1: So one of the reasons to have a rehearsal dinner
Speaker 1: you get to say a lot, a load to a
Speaker 1: lot of people there. And I personally even though it
Speaker 1: used to be considered you know, I guess sort of ghost.
Speaker 1: I don't know why I like the bride and groom
Speaker 1: to give a toast at their wedding. I know you
Speaker 1: do when you cut the cake and then say, you
Speaker 1: know how much we love all of you. We really
Speaker 1: wanted to have fun at our wedding. We hope you
Speaker 1: had fun. So that's why we didn't trek around to
Speaker 1: all the tables. But please know that that doesn't mean
Speaker 1: that we love you any less. You know, no. Three
Speaker 1: and that's a three guests. It would be two and
Speaker 1: a half hours. You wouldn't get a chance to dance. Okay,
Speaker 1: So we're done with the wedding where escorting people are
Speaker 1: people are leaving? So are we giving? Is this today
Speaker 1: at two twenty one? Is there something? Is there a
Speaker 1: gift giving to the the guests get something to take
Speaker 1: with them. Is that something that's chic today? I love
Speaker 1: to give something, you know, if it's financially feasible, But
Speaker 1: I love to give something edible. I think, you know,
Speaker 1: especially drunk people getting in their cars or getting something,
Speaker 1: you know, hopefully with a driver, or like dying for
Speaker 1: something to eat, like you get in the car, like
Speaker 1: I'm still hungry, I've been dancing. You know, something something fabulous.
Speaker 1: I don't believe in giving candles or splits of like
Speaker 1: cheap champagne or a bunch of other crap, but I
Speaker 1: think the something fabulous like a coffee cake or you know,
Speaker 1: one of the best things we've done, which is people
Speaker 1: who are not having next day brunch, which I understand completely.
Speaker 1: Everyone looks hungover and miserable. And we did a breakfast
Speaker 1: to go, so you got you had a little Bloody
Speaker 1: Mary kit and you got to choose, like did you
Speaker 1: want a bunch of bagels, do you want some smoke salmon?
Speaker 1: Do you want some crosslines or whatever? And you put
Speaker 1: your little bag together and people were like, I got
Speaker 1: notes from the guests on that, because some things like
Speaker 1: that I think people appreciate, or if there's something truly
Speaker 1: truly special. When Joe Bam opened the Rainbow Room and
Speaker 1: this is God what year was that, you know, the
Speaker 1: Second Incarnation? And they had that giant Chihuli sculpture there
Speaker 1: and I still have it. I think it's back here
Speaker 1: in my bookshelves. Everyone got in a little bit a
Speaker 1: little piece of truly glass. Wow to me, it's all
Speaker 1: of these little crumbs. Wow. Did you see the invitation? Wow?
Speaker 1: Did you see the Did you see the drink? Did
Speaker 1: you see the bartenders they have? Did you you see
Speaker 1: the band? And all these little things are going to
Speaker 1: add up at the end of the day. You don't
Speaker 1: know how it quite the zeitgeis happens. But I tell
Speaker 1: people it's not one thing. It's a Joan Nichols. He's
Speaker 1: string him together and you've got like twenty bucks and
Speaker 1: it and it's alchemy. It is alchemy. I cannot tell
Speaker 1: you something so simple and so you would think, you know,
Speaker 1: so easy not to overlook things like that make all
Speaker 1: the difference. For our fourth and final course, I got
Speaker 1: to speak with Marcy about how COVID changed her business
Speaker 1: from a tide of wedding cancelations last year to the
Speaker 1: flurry of ceremonies this spring and summer. The event planning
Speaker 1: industry has been through a lot. I wanted to know
Speaker 1: how Marcy is dealing with that whiplash and whether the
Speaker 1: pandemic changed what her clients are looking for. So I've
Speaker 1: been watching, I mean, just taking an inventory on this industry.
Speaker 1: It's kind of fascinating and I mean, this is the
Speaker 1: last two years. What's happened is that, I mean it
Speaker 1: was going gangbusters before. So we've had this sudden pause
Speaker 1: in the world. Now everybody wants to get back in
Speaker 1: the world. And it's not just a one one, you
Speaker 1: know city coming back on its feet. It's it's a
Speaker 1: hundred eighty countries and now trying to sort of like
Speaker 1: into some sort of spin control and get back to normal.
Speaker 1: So what has happened to you in your business in
Speaker 1: a in a global sense, and how are you dealing
Speaker 1: with it? Because I can barely. We are so swamp
Speaker 1: that for the first time my career, I'm turning down business,
Speaker 1: and I'm turning down business that I would have always wanted.
Speaker 1: We just can't do it. And and of a client
Speaker 1: complaints I'm not paying enough attention. I was like, well,
Speaker 1: you could fire me and hire somebody else. But we're
Speaker 1: all on the same boat because everyone everyone I know
Speaker 1: of inequality is absolutely slammed, and so much so that
Speaker 1: we usually help each other, we can't even help each other,
Speaker 1: and we're just hiring off the street. You know. It's
Speaker 1: really it's crazy. And people made a lot of money
Speaker 1: last year. Not only was where people shut in the house.
Speaker 1: They also made a lot of money in the stock market.
Speaker 1: So wealthy people have money and they want to spend it.
Speaker 1: They want to celebrate, they want to see their friends,
Speaker 1: they want to see their family, they want to do
Speaker 1: something special, they want to treat people. So coming out
Speaker 1: of the woodwork, I've never you know, jobs that I
Speaker 1: would ordinarily sit around going if I could only get that,
Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm not sure we can do it. It's
Speaker 1: it's it's really something, and I hope I'm hoping it happens,
Speaker 1: you know, for the restaurant business and all our friends
Speaker 1: and every other business I know. Travel is still struggling.
Speaker 1: The hotel business is still terrible. I don't see it
Speaker 1: anything quite frankly, I think that people's perspective on the
Speaker 1: shortness of life and the value of time is really
Speaker 1: hit home, and they're gonna like we're just gonna we're
Speaker 1: gonna step back here and like we're gonna like spend
Speaker 1: a little bit more time, have some fun, and like
Speaker 1: screw it. A million. I'm so glad you said that,
Speaker 1: because you know, everybody I'm around and like, wow, when
Speaker 1: the unemployment runs out, and I was like, it's not it.
Speaker 1: It's a philosophical really very very very integral philosophical change.
Speaker 1: And people who were working. If let's say Waiter was
Speaker 1: making sixty grand a year and he could now make
Speaker 1: thirty grand a year, has been some time with his
Speaker 1: wife and kids, or maybe surfing or wherever at the
Speaker 1: end of the day is the difference. Why not? Why
Speaker 1: not run them working day and night? And I understand
Speaker 1: completely If it's not what you love to do, I
Speaker 1: get it. What's the point? So what are people spending
Speaker 1: money on now? And what what have you father asking
Speaker 1: for that you'd never would, ever in a million years
Speaker 1: think that pre pandemic they would ask for, particularly those
Speaker 1: those real over the top ones. What do they want
Speaker 1: now that they you like, I don't understand it, but
Speaker 1: we're gonna give it to him. Headliner Entertainment. I constantly
Speaker 1: getting calls how much is Gaga? What do you think
Speaker 1: you do? Wow? Oh? Yeah? Yeah? And that goes that budget?
Speaker 1: Is no budget? That point to get Gaga? Yeah? Well,
Speaker 1: you know, people, even very very very rich people have
Speaker 1: no sense of what anything costs, you know, so that
Speaker 1: what would that be? A million? I was like, you're
Speaker 1: kidding rights? Probably ten? Yeah, exactly, So headline entertainment like
Speaker 1: so bringing a band, whatever, whatever, whoever they want, Harry styles,
Speaker 1: you name it. It doesn't really matter. And there is nobody.
Speaker 1: Everybody is doing an after party. Everybody is doing an
Speaker 1: after party, which started maybe five years ago, pre pandemic.
Speaker 1: But the guests are growing exponentially. People are now I
Speaker 1: want to see everybody I've ever known, but no one is,
Speaker 1: so not to the wedding, just the after party. So
Speaker 1: there's two events, to the wedding itself and to the
Speaker 1: same event invite the guests. That's are growing, growing, growing,
Speaker 1: growing at you know, all our weddings with three hundred,
Speaker 1: four hundred people, four people. Yeah, yeah, uh. People are
Speaker 1: paying more attention, which is a good thing to the ceremony.
Speaker 1: I think they're that spirituality that I get to your point.
Speaker 1: Everyone sort of really felt their own mortality last year
Speaker 1: for sure, right. And when we do a destination wedding, now,
Speaker 1: you know, it's tricky because you have to plan everything
Speaker 1: by the airline schedules and when people are leaving. So
Speaker 1: sometimes we have to do not only next day brunch,
Speaker 1: but like day after dinner or something for the guests
Speaker 1: who are still there because they're not flying out and
Speaker 1: you can't just leave them to their own devices. So
Speaker 1: food wise, I want to know what has changed food? Well,
Speaker 1: I mean a lot's changed, But what do people want
Speaker 1: right now that you're like, wow, they again with that
Speaker 1: I get. I just can't believe it. And I'm so
Speaker 1: shocked at how we're now serving this where I never
Speaker 1: would have served this, and I never would have thought
Speaker 1: this would have gone short ribs, which you would have
Speaker 1: considered such a such a peasant dish years ago. I
Speaker 1: would say nine out of ten. Certainly fall and winter events, weddings,
Speaker 1: even corporate and short ribs is the winner, you know,
Speaker 1: because they finally people have finally realize what you and
Speaker 1: I knew forever that filet mignon has, you know, no
Speaker 1: flavor unless it's extraordinary, right, and the combo platter of
Speaker 1: the flavor, the texture, the wonderful you know, aromas, everything.
Speaker 1: So a lot of people love short ribs. They love
Speaker 1: the polenta or you know, wonderful meshed potatoes with it.
Speaker 1: It's it's a very earthly, comforting dish that could still,
Speaker 1: you know, be elevated to look fabulous for a party
Speaker 1: or a wedding. You're a busy lady. I just saw
Speaker 1: you three weeks ago, and I could see it in
Speaker 1: your in your expression, in your your bodily panicked. You're
Speaker 1: you were panicked because you're always in a heightened sense,
Speaker 1: but you're extremely heightened having some and call you and say,
Speaker 1: I want to do the most over the top blah
Speaker 1: blah blah, there is what do I have to do?
Speaker 1: It must be the most significantly stressful moment for a
Speaker 1: couple of reasons. I would imagine it's stressful because your
Speaker 1: left side of your brain is organizing how it's going
Speaker 1: to happen, what's all the you know, who's going to
Speaker 1: do this? Who am I going to get to do that? Who?
Speaker 1: Where the resources coming from? The right side? Is that
Speaker 1: the impact trauma of like how we're going to be different,
Speaker 1: and how is it gonna all work, and where we're
Speaker 1: gonna grab from what's something we haven't done before? And
Speaker 1: I would say the merging of those two produces such
Speaker 1: a stress that I would love to know how you
Speaker 1: handle that stress and and how you compartmentalize many, many
Speaker 1: million things at the same time. I think you're absolutely right.
Speaker 1: It's very similar to opening a restaurant or uh, embarking
Speaker 1: on any artistic project, and I think people go out
Speaker 1: at two different possible ways. And the way I go
Speaker 1: about it is, let's start with the fantasy before we
Speaker 1: before we figure out if it's doable, if it's affordable,
Speaker 1: if it's logistically possible, or say what what what's your
Speaker 1: wildest dream if you could have anything the same way
Speaker 1: you're supposed to go about life, right, what would you
Speaker 1: do if you knew you couldn't fail? So the same
Speaker 1: thing for approaching an event, and then take that and
Speaker 1: see how close you can come to that vision. But
Speaker 1: that doesn't describe how you handle the stress. That just
Speaker 1: gave me more stress. Now you're like, now you're setting
Speaker 1: yourself up for like you're letting someone down on her
Speaker 1: day or bed, and particularly this year, it's extremely stressful. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: I think those of us who are you know, have
Speaker 1: a modicum of success in it aren't, partially because we
Speaker 1: care so much. So there's no way to mitigate it.
Speaker 1: I mean, you can meditate, you can drink a little,
Speaker 1: you can work out, you know, all the all the
Speaker 1: things that help, but at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: you know, I will still wake up at four o'clock
Speaker 1: in the morning. It's like actors nightmares, like what about
Speaker 1: the escort cars? What about the place cars? Even though
Speaker 1: they're ordered, it's just it's it's in your DNA. At
Speaker 1: that point, you are so fantastic. I could talk to
Speaker 1: you what we need cocktails, but I could talk to
Speaker 1: you for hours. I have so many more questions. Maybe
Speaker 1: another time, but thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 1: It's been delightful. As always. I I can't wait to
Speaker 1: see you again in whatever state we're in and have
Speaker 1: a terrific time. Thank you, Marcia, Thanks Jeffrey, all right,
Speaker 1: thanks very much for listening to Four Courses with Jeffrey Zacarrion,
Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radio and Corner Table Entertainment.
Speaker 1: Four Courses. It is created by Jeffrey Zacarrion, Margaret Secarrion,
Speaker 1: Jared Keller, and Tara Halper. Our executive producer is Christopher Hesiotis.
Speaker 1: Four Courses is produced by Jonathan Hawgs Dressler Our Research.
Speaker 1: It's conducted by Jescelyn Shields. Our talent booking is by
Speaker 1: Pamela Bauer at Dogtown Talent. This episode was edited and
Speaker 1: written by Priya Matavan and mixed by Joe Tistle. Special
Speaker 1: thanks to Katie Fellman and Marcy Bloom for help as
Speaker 1: recording engineers. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit
Speaker 1: the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows.