Celebrity Hotel: True Inside Gossip, Scandal and Intrigue by Neil Kirby

Author:Neil Kirby [Kirby, Neil]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: MyVoice Publishing
Published: 2014-03-15T04:00:00+00:00

A Three-ring Circus

Marriage is a three-ring circus: engagement ring, wedding ring, and suffering.

Anonymous

I hate weddings!

Over the years I have organised more than 19,700 weddings in hotels and have seen it all. Tears, tantrums, drunkenness, feuding families, and that is just at the planning stage. On the big day itself there can be collapsing cakes, bolting horses, a fainting best man, quarrelsome in-laws, belligerent photographers, the bride tripping over her long dress and ending up flat on her face . . . you name it.

The largest that I was involved with was a half-million-pound wedding for an Arab prince in January 1994. The Great Room at Grosvenor House was transformed into a Spanish castle made from imitation stone, with the staircase end of the room raised so that guests at the back would be able to see the cabaret; five hundred bottles of Dom Perignon champagne were drunk, and the menu included blinis and beluga caviar. Michelin chef Michel Roux from Le Gavroche Restaurant designed the menu, and veal for the main course was brought over from France. Michel Roux and four of his own chefs cooked for the top table of ten guests, and twenty Grosvenor House chefs cooked for the other 640 guests.

One of the most lavish and expensive weddings that I ever arranged at Park Lane was that of a wealthy Saudi Arabian sheik. The Great Room was made to look like a stately home with £100,000 spent setting up a magnificent staircase as a centrepiece. The flowers cost £40,000, and this was in the mid 1980s, and no expense was spared on the entertainment provided by singers and dancers. Inevitably there was the finest caviar, the best champagne, and £50,000 was spent on drinks alone. Six hundred guests were in attendance and 150 bedrooms were booked for those that needed to stay. Altogether the bill came to in excess of £1 million, at a time when the average wedding cost £1,200.

The smallest wedding that I have organised was for just six people. The civil ceremony was held in the hotel and was undertaken by two registrars. Apart from the bride and groom, there were two witnesses and two other guests. The six had dinner afterwards, and the bill for the whole event was just £400 pounds.

Probably the most original wedding reception in the Great Room was when the immaculately uniformed Head Waiter, complete with white gloves, suddenly made an announcement at the end of the meal. He was Australian and said that he was heading back to his homeland. As it was his last day, he declared that he wanted to sing for the guests before he went. While he was speaking, the manager came in and began remonstrating with him. Bewildered guests looked on as the two began to argue, and it was not long before the chef appeared and joined in the fray. Suddenly all three burst into song and began singing opera with the rest of the staff. They were all professional opera singers posing as waiters for the day, and had been booked to surprise and entertain the wedding guests.

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