September 17, 2021 • 41 mins
In this episode, host Geoffrey Zakarian speaks with world-class wedding planner Marcy Blum. She shares how the food and celebrations in her childhood home shaped her understanding of successful entertaining, and reflects on what it took to elevate the event planning industry over the span of her career.
Learn more about Marcy Blum at her website, https://marcyblum.com.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
My name is Jeffrey Z Carrien and you're listening to
four Courses with Jeffrey Z Carrian from my Heart Radio.
In four courses, I'll be taking you along for the
ride while I talk with the top talent of our time.
In each conversation, I focus on four different areas from
my guests life and career. And during those four courses,
I'm going to dig deep and uncover new insights and
(00:24):
inspirations that we can all use to fuel ourselves to
push forward. My guest for this episode is an internationally
renowned party and event planner. She's planned weddings and other
events for none other than Billy, Joel lebron and Savannah James,
and the Rockefeller family and also yours. Truly, and according
to many, she's the best in the world at it.
(00:46):
Without further delay, let's get into my conversation with Marcy Bloom. Hi, Marcy.
For our first course, I wanted to understand Marcy's roots
as a kid growing up in the Bronx. It turns
out that her understanding of what made a successful party
started in the kitchen with their mom. When you were
a kid, I know your mom was a great hostess,
(01:09):
like what was what were the things in the house.
Like I say, around six or seven years old, I
remember my the smells and I asked everybody this question,
what was what's cooking? What is the lingering smell in
your household? That was food related and that you can
remember till today. Probably brisket for the holidays, brisket or
my mother's big holiday was Thanksgiving. And my mother was
(01:33):
not only extraordinary hostess, she really was an extraordinary cook.
And my father had delusions of it being a kosher house.
So my mother did her best because she wasn't raised
that way, but he was, so that she took courses
from Simone Beck and James Beard and all of those
people other than Julia, but but simonas who know as
(01:55):
Julia's you know, writing and cooking partner, and uh, she
would come home and try to make these extraordinary French
recipes kosher, which is hilarious because there's not one piece
of meat that doesn't have cream or butter or anything,
which is her boating. But she did a pretty good job.
And she was a great baker as well. So I
(02:17):
grew up with the television pulled into the kitchen, you know,
to watch Julia Child as we were having dinner and
so to me a long answer to a short question.
But I think you know, when I started my business,
people would say, well, you know, especially Visa B weddings,
well really who nobody expects food to be good at weddings.
(02:37):
And I was so horrified by that. I was like,
how could you have an event spend this kind of
money and that kind of time and I think that
the food is it doesn't matter. Maybe it was completely
irrational to me because that's how I was raised. The
party always started with the food. It had to look pretty,
but it always started with the fruit. So your mom's
cooking brisket, you remember, the briskets smell in the house,
(03:00):
by the way, with the spices and some vinegar and
stuff could last a long time, and I would assume
I'm still washing that out of my hair. But you know, so,
I mean, so that's very It's that's you know, I'm
getting hints here now. So Simon Beck verified French food
Julia Child as sort of like a co dependent in
(03:23):
the household. To Kosh your parents. Your dad is a
wholesale supplier, so he got the food wholesale. So you
guys could spend a lot of cash on stuff because
it was cheap. Yeah, he was a wholesale food supplier.
And as I said, I think I was eighteen the
first time I saw a number two can of tuna,
because I thought everything came in number ten tins, so
(03:45):
I thought it was for a doll's house. I was like,
what is that cute little two out scann of tuna?
So you could experiment and it was fine because you
had like it was an endless supply. What a wonderful
thing exactly. And my other was the only person. You know,
we lived in Riverdale. We lived in a nice apartment,
but it certainly wasn't palatial. But she had two freezers
(04:07):
and most of my friends too freezers. She would bake
and freeze and bacon. And she was a full time teacher,
so she did this all in her after hours. Yeah,
so you're very much you're entertained, and you had this,
I mean, that's a rarefied sort of thing, right to
Jewish parents raising someone with a distinctively French motive OPERANDAI
(04:28):
sort of And was your mom the entertainer that you are?
Was she sort of like was she at all inclined
to have large parties. That was she just someone that
would just have a five or six top over. No,
she would, you know, she would with my father's family.
We would split the holidays, so my mother's holiday was Thanksgiving,
(04:50):
and so they would probably be twenty twenty two people
and she would be working on it for a really
long time, cutting out recipes you know you didn't download
them then, and clipping things, and buying new cookbooks and
taking them out of the the library and deciding on the menu.
And then as I got older and was able to participate,
(05:12):
she and I would do it together and come up
with you know, like four different kinds of cranberry something
that we would serve. We really had a lot of fun,
a lot of fun doing it. And this is before
I went to culinary school. So what was so they
give me a menu, give me a very successful turkey
cooking tip that you still use and wait did it
(05:35):
derive from? Was it you? Your mom? Thing? She went
through a lot of different permutations on how to cook turkey.
I remember about ten years ago, all my friends were
deep frying, and then they were not pickling, brining, and
then you know, every time he goes away, go, oh,
my cocaine, just roast turkey and leave us alone. But
(05:58):
but she at the end of the day it was
the long and slow I think it was maybe three
hundred degrees maybe, you know, and it was in there,
and it was a giant thing, and it was in there.
You have to take all the other shelves out of
the oven. Nothing else could go at the same time, right,
and it would it would be in there for many, many,
many hours. So she'd get up at six am put
(06:18):
it in, and you know, if Thanksgiving was it too,
it would be coming out long enough to you know,
sit and and be ready. How did you bake the
other stuff? Was the day before? You'd have to do,
you know, to get the turkey out, put everything else
in the oven. And then later on I think we've
got one of those faba ware or whatever, you know,
second ovens. And it's so funny that you say that,
(06:40):
because I am in the midst I'm doing my kitchen
for the first time ever, and I've always wanted to
do this, and one of my clients was kind enough
to give me a donation because I said I wanted
a wolf ovens, so I have. So I'm finally doing
it and all I care about is having I want
to wall ovens and an under oven, because I yeah,
(07:02):
that's all I care about. Well, you need it. You
need it to entertain. You have to have a warming oven.
You're gonna have a finishing oven, and you gotta have
the main event of it. Otherwise, you know, it's it's
what I have at this at my house too. In
our second course, I had to find out what drew
Marcy into the planning business. After studying acting in high school,
she moved to a farming commune in Vermont when she
(07:23):
was sixteen, and it quickly went south. I had been
living on a commune. It broke up. I didn't know
what I was going to do. So I you know,
I went and sat in my parents apartment and watched
Let's Make a Deal Chris a year and my parents
are like, well, this is not okay. One thing, we
don't see you for five years, but then you come
back and you take over the house. And so my
(07:43):
brother was living in Paris, short story, and he said,
why don't you apply to court in Blue because you
love to cook, And anyway, they accepted me. I went
to court in Blow and I was it was like
I was reborn. I was never very talented chef, but
I love to cook. And it was and you only
get that, in my opinion, a couple of times in
(08:04):
your life. Really that that true love and joy for something,
and you know that is really a gift from the
universe because you can't get enough of it. You know,
you go to sleep with stacks of cookbooks next to
your bed, and and you know post It's and I
mean gourmet magazine. I would read it. You know, it
was like Anna Karenina. I would just like every single
(08:27):
you know, every single recipe, every single aspect. I mean,
it was just I could not get enough and and
and it wasn't as you know, it wasn't very chic.
Then you know, it was nice to be a cook.
And even when I went to c I a later,
you know, the chefs would say, which of course now
they would never have the nerve to say, you know,
you're going to make such a great wife, because you know,
(08:51):
I think it's fascinating that, you know, I think you
and I went to UH and we really found our
calling in the food world more hospitality than myself. But
basically we're in theater. This is theater. This the theater
of the absurd, actually, but it's it is theater rights.
And I think that you, as a as a world
(09:13):
class event planner, must be asked, I want the most absurd,
the most incredible, and you are like relying on your
balance of experience just starting out. What was it that
made you sort of say, listen, I don't want to
do cut the cakes, the bride takes the cake to
blah blah blah bl You know that, it's like I'll
(09:35):
puntil forty years ago, it was the same, you know,
you just it was number one or two in the
blue book. Check the box, send me the check in,
show up on time, and do you want the chicken
or the prime rib? You know, when did you when
did you say you know what this is? I'm going
to shake things up. I guess I think I was
too stupid to even know that things needed to be
shook up. I didn't understand that that's how it went,
(09:58):
you know. And I was so into food and I
was so into hospitality and my personal experience. People are
spending let's say when I started there, spending a couple
hundred thousand. Now, you know, many millions of dollars. If
you're spending that kind of money and all you're looking
(10:19):
at is is the decor you're missing, if not half
three quarters of the rest of it. So how do
you bring that experience? What makes it special? And I
you know, borrows steel plagiarized. I mean the first time
you go to Alan Ducas's restaurant in Monico, when you
see that bread cart, You're like, Okay, why can't we
(10:40):
do that for a party? Why can't we do that
for a wedding? Why not? And you know, cater resorts,
I'm like a big, big I was like, no, that's
not an answer, Like why not? Why not try it?
And you see the delight on guest spaces like I
can't believe we have bread cart or I can't believe
you know some and thought to give me a place
(11:02):
card and seat me next to people who I would
find interesting rather than default with my wife, husband, significant other.
Like how cool is that someone actually thought about my experience?
You know, it sounds like you've got a lot of
a lot of these eccentric cities from your mom your mind,
didn't Your mom used to serve like different kinds of
scotch if everyone liked different scotch. She would serve. I
(11:24):
read a story about that. It sounds like she was
catering to each person, which is kind of brilliant. And
I'm so, you know, look on occasion, I've had clients,
luckily not for many years, and you know who would
be just serve good wine at our table, or just
serve the champagne at our table. And I know that
probably is extraordinary to you, but it happens all the time.
(11:46):
And I would be if I were a guest and
walk past your table and so the DP on your
table and I was drinking, even if it was moved.
It's not the point. The fact that you care so
little about the guests experience would be horror afying to me.
And and to your point. My you know, we I
had two uncles and two other men who were always
(12:07):
part of the family would come to these things that
my mother would go out every year and she would
buy four different kinds of scotch and and the same
thing coke and pepsi. And when I got married, my
now former stepson wouldn't eat turkey or anything. She would
go and get the absolute best steak, you know, she
let it rest and it would broil it for him. Right,
But that's just how she rolled and I just never
(12:31):
saw it any other way. You know. Luckily for me
and my clients, you started around eight six, I believe
really doing it for like seriously, I mean, that is
virtue that there's a lot of very high profile weddings
that went on before. What would people do before that
was sort of it was considered over the top, pre
(12:54):
Marcy Bloom events. What was over the top and was
very supposed predictable in the middle of the tay, you know,
and some of my colleagues and some of my very
talented designer friends, that's what they would do. It would
just be as if someone vomited flowers or you know.
And my line that I always say is, you know,
(13:17):
if you're only looking at that when you're planning an event,
particularly a wedding, it's like you took Brad Pitt or
Angelina Jolie home and they just lay there. That's so true,
and I have many events I've gone to. It's it's
suffocating the amount of flowers and you can't see you
(13:37):
can't see anyone, you can't see the person across from you.
There's no subtlety, there's no it's just one shot. There's
no art you know, artistry, there's no there's no theater,
no for our third course. I knew that Marcy could
(14:06):
share some incredibly event planning insights. I wanted to know
what goes through her head as she balances her big
picture vision for an event with her ongoing checklist of
small tasks. She said, it all boils down to one
important shift in her perspective. You have to walk it
through as if you're a guest, not as if you're
(14:26):
the host or a bride or a groom, because you're
always gonna get taken care of. You are a guest.
From the moment you pull up in your uber or
you're driving your car. What's going on is someone opening
the car door? Is uh someone escorting you inside or
to the place to give your coat away, which, by
the way, one of the things makes me cuckoo is
(14:48):
lines for the coat room. You have to have runners.
You have to have people just take your coat and
give you a ticket and they can worry about it
in the back of the house, even if it's mayhem,
which it most often is. I don't care. But when's
your first drink and what is it? What are you
listening to what are the lights? What makes you feel
that someone's happy that you are there? Specifically you are there,
(15:11):
is um someone greeting you, even if it's not the
host and hostess. Who are you know, presumably too busy,
especially that your paths get married. But someone from my team,
someone from another hospitality team, and then what happens? Are
you confused about where to go? Are you confused about
where the restrooms are? Is someone standing in the vest
(15:32):
of you when you leave the restroom? Don't let me
show you where the dining room is, or let me
show you where the coculator, all the things that you
know people are. They don't want to be embarrassed. They
don't like to feel insecure, certainly not when they're arriving
at an event. So you want to mitigate any confusion
about where they're going, who there with. You don't want
someone on a line for hours looking for their escort card,
(15:56):
which makes people panic because they think that maybe there
was a mistake and they're not on that table. When
you see people's eyes, you see them pale. So you
always have people there with the iPads. Let me just
just tell me your name, don't bother looking for that
are all handed to you. Later you will have to
be sort of, you know, nurtured and nestled around it
every single moment. So and then when you plan the
(16:19):
movement of the evening, well, I want to get my
first dance out of the way because I'm really nervous.
Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Okay, but if
you get your first dance out of the way, and
then I thought, and then we'll just sit down. But
that's not fair to people, because once you start dancing,
people want to dance. So even though that looks to
you like it would make you most comfortable, why don't
(16:39):
we look about what you would feel as a guest.
And when I worked with difficult people who don't want
to say it but really don't care about what what
happens with the guests, I will say, well, you know,
I've never met anybody, bridegroom, host, hostess who's happy when
their guests are not happy. So why don't we Why
don't we try to turn it a round and see
(17:00):
the guest experience. First, We're going to take care of you.
You are not the issue. It's the rest of these people.
So in other words, it's basically, you want to seduce
the guests. It's not about the gut throwing a party
for the guests, and the bride and groom have the
privilege of throwing a party. Kind of turn it on
(17:20):
the tail, right, And I don't think a lot of
people think of it like that. The same way, if
you're doing, you know, a rehearsal dinner, it's it's uh,
you know, classic. Now it's a little trite to do
a montage of some sort, you know, almost like a
Borman's vote. Like photographs, and I'm always saying that people
include as many photos of the other people in the room.
(17:41):
Nobody wants to look at your photos unless it's your grandmother,
right for more than three minutes. But when I'm including,
oh my god, look that's when we were in the
Amalfi Coast together, that it reminds people why they're there,
why you have them there, And it's just, you know,
so such an easy thing to do, and it's not
the narcissism of these events is what is poison and
(18:06):
it doesn't have to be. And people as often because
people aren't thinking, not that they don't care, they're just
not thinking. Yeah, And your job is to sort of
focus them on stuff they would never think of, because
you are really throwing an event. It is not you're
not you're not marrying them. They're getting married, but you're
throwing them an event to commemorate that. That's everything is
(18:28):
that guest experience. It's like, if they're not seduced, the
party is gonna suck, exactly. And you could spend you know,
you could be serving troubles that were just you know,
flown in from Alba over the most extraordinary pasta. It
doesn't matter unless they feel nurtured and wanted and part
of this community that you're creating. Even if it's just
(18:48):
for the night, it's not gonna fly, not gonna fly.
And it's really what you said is really important. I
think a lot of people don't understand. Like when you
have a restaurant, you know, we have practice nights and
then we we launch right, and then we launch and
then we every day we like trundlet along. We try
to do what we're supposed to do. We do it well,
once in a while we stumble, and then the next
(19:09):
day we do it better. With a wedding, with an event,
people are spending millions of dollars. You basically have ninety
minutes to get it right or your your reputation is
like shot. It's that no one's coming back tomorrow. I mean,
the worst thing that someone could say is like that
was nice. Right. Someone once told me you can spend
(19:30):
as much money as you want, and no one is
going to talk about anything other than how much shrimp
there was at the table at the buffet table standing
by the kitchen, right, exactly, No one's gonna that's what.
That's all I care about, you know. So I gotta
I gotta ask these questions because I know we all
we've had, like you know, things didn't go well and
all that. How do you pull out of a disaster?
(19:52):
Have you had some close calls where I'm not talking
about lightning hitting or rain hitting. I mean, that's just
like a way it is. I'm talking about like clients
who are just one step away from, you know, being
pushed into moving traffic. I mean I've had it. I've
had it often. I certainly had it much worse when
(20:13):
I was younger in my business, when I had less gravitas.
I'm a little more obnoxious now if they do that,
But I wanted. You know, we have in our office
a giant blown up copy of an email from a client,
and this is this is really interesting. I was trying
to create a very different kind of dining scenario, which
(20:37):
i'll explain too quickly, and I just I couldn't grasp it.
They wanted to do, of course, served food almost like
dim sum, but they didn't want to seat people at
regular tables, and it was just very, very difficult. And finally,
and the bride's father, who is a tough cookie, we're
(20:57):
now friends, but man, every day he called me, He's like,
I can't believe this, Like, you know, like, where's the numbers,
Where's it this? I said, It's not that I'm not
working on you, I just I cannot get the concept.
And finally, like in the middle of the night, I
had this epiphany, and we've designed it basically after what's
it called him in the Breakers that restaurant where the
(21:22):
tables are twenty eight inches high instead of thirty inches high.
And consequently you can actually have a full meal sitting
on a couch without putting it on your lap, because
you can actually lean on the table and cut and eat.
It's it's extraordinary teeny little detail that changes everything. And
then we sat people in like pods or lounges as
(21:47):
opposed to tables, so like you know, there's two couches
to set teas that we figured out and then and
that's how And it was one of the best weddings
I've ever done. And I have an email from the
father of the bride, may a couple, may a couple,
maya Coppa. I cannot believe you know you people are
extraordinary And and I said to him, I said, it's
(22:09):
not that you were wrong. I could understand you being nervous.
But I always say to people now, I say to
my clients, I was like, don't ask to see my
homework because I'm not going to show you the long division.
You just just count on the fact that it's going
to be wonderful. It just sometimes it takes me a
while to get there. And it's not you know, it's
(22:29):
just for lack of inspiration, not for lack of trying. No.
And it's also what you said was really crucial there
is that the skill set that you need to have
now versus forty years ago is extraordinary. I mean, you're
you're you're a communicator, you're a swingari, you're a you're
a chef, you're a psychotherapist, you're a hostage negotiator, epidemiologist.
(22:58):
And I'm also and to be an expert on MERV
thirteen and hep A filters as of last week. As recently. Yeah,
I've been adding every year to my resume. It's extraordinary.
I'm a technical engineer and an epidemiologist. I would think, though,
that these skills set of someone like yourself, because I
know how rare it is. There can't be too many
(23:21):
people that do what you do with sort of the
background that you've come about it with. I mean, I
mean you have to have like real, you know, balls
of steel to listen to these people. Because I have
the same people with my restaurant. I don't know how
you deal with them. How do you deal with difficult
these difficult people that have money And I don't mean
that money and difficulty go together. Sometimes they do, sometimes
(23:43):
sometimes they don't. But how do you deal with someone
who thinks they know everything? I'll tell you there's two
different possibilities here. And I've had a bunch of difficult
clients who actually we're smarter than I am, and that's
a different kind of uh obnoxious. I mean we did
let's say, you know, Donnie Deutsch's fiftieth birthday, right, and
(24:04):
he was always you know, Marcy, what about this? And
I would because he's so obnoxious. At the end of
the day, he taught me a lot, you know, so
you have to be I think arrogance, as you know,
is basically you know, the killer of maybe you know
just about everybody, but certainly any entrepreneur. I think my
(24:26):
lack maybe my my personal insecurity and my lack of
that kind of arrogance has really stood me well. So
when it's difficult people, I really have to think for
a second before I before i'd be like screw, you
have to be like, wait a minute, do they know
something that maybe I haven't learned. Half the time, my
filter is I'm soon they're going mortgage payments, trip to Italy.
(24:48):
You know that's sometimes that's the only way to get
through it, right. You know, you can't sell anything just
based on my being obnoxious. I have to let people
make their own session. At the end of the day,
it's their wedding, it's their party, it's their money. I
will never say, but how could you ever that's not
my business is to be a chameleon and make their
(25:09):
experience their experience as fabulous as it can be. I
am not in the business of telling people what to
do unless it pertains to safety or you know, just
outright stupidity, like no, you can't make your guests walk
thirty blocks. You have to do transportation. It's just not nice,
(25:30):
you I I have. I would imagine the conversations when
you're brought into someone says, we want to we don't
get married, we want to hire you. This is what
we want. That first conversation until the wedding must be
like a remarkable sneak peek into their life question and
I could tell you, maybe within nine chance of who's
(25:51):
going to last and who is on occasion. I'm wrong,
but but certainly the process of planning a wedding is
extremely indicative of the inner workings of their relationship. For sure. Yeah,
you have some rules you taught me, like one of
the rules of a good Give me some timing issues,
because people get lost in weddings and it just drags
(26:13):
on and it's just an awful Like give me the
rules of the road. Cocktail hour should be around an
hour unless you know, if you're doing an Orthodox Jewish wedding,
for example, there's all these other rituals involved that are
in the contail hour, so an hour and a half.
But what it shouldn't be is the guests should not
be kept from being seated because the bride and groom
(26:34):
were taking their photographs like that, really, and so I
don't care what they have to do too, you know,
truncate their shot list. But absolutely you can't because that
pauses not only drunk and miserable people, but resentment. You know, yeah,
our cocktail, then what? And then I think dinner service.
(26:56):
I mean, my favorite party, if I were getting married again,
would be an hour and twenty minutes. Is pretty much
three course dinner, that's it. Background music, fabulous background music,
not elevator music, something clever, innovative, and then kick ass
dancing after that. So you have people who don't love
(27:17):
to dance, or people who want to drink good wines,
eat good food, talk to the people at their table,
get an hour and twenty minutes to do that, and
the kids as soon as they're finishing, and get to
have this crazy, fabulous dance party. And I think it
makes everyone happy. So two and a half hours, three
hours max. And what's the rule of the bride and
the groom going to see everyone? If you have three
(27:39):
hundred people, how could they possibly spend If they spend
a minute with each person, that's three hundred minutes and
there's no there's no time. What do you do? It's ridiculous.
So I remember, you know, when I started one of
my first big jobs, maybe three years in, was Nelson
Rockefeller's granddaughter, and I remember Stephen Rockefeller, the bride's father,
and listing on a receiving line. Of course, I had
(28:01):
never heard of such a thing. I had to go
look up Emily post Well. I was like, I had
no idea what the hell he was talking about. And
I was so perplexed. I was like, well, the three
guess right, a minute, thirty seconds endless. And as it
turns out, it was endless. But in a social you know,
certain social strata, they were used to it. They were like, well,
(28:22):
get on the receiving high. You know, it's like Jesus.
So one of the reasons to have a rehearsal dinner
you get to say a lot, a load to a
lot of people there. And I personally even though it
used to be considered you know, I guess sort of ghost.
I don't know why I like the bride and groom
(28:42):
to give a toast at their wedding. I know you
do when you cut the cake and then say, you
know how much we love all of you. We really
wanted to have fun at our wedding. We hope you
had fun. So that's why we didn't trek around to
all the tables. But please know that that doesn't mean
that we love you any less. You know, no. Three
and that's a three guests. It would be two and
a half hours. You wouldn't get a chance to dance. Okay,
(29:04):
So we're done with the wedding where escorting people are
people are leaving? So are we giving? Is this today
at two twenty one? Is there something? Is there a
gift giving to the the guests get something to take
with them. Is that something that's chic today? I love
to give something, you know, if it's financially feasible, But
(29:27):
I love to give something edible. I think, you know,
especially drunk people getting in their cars or getting something,
you know, hopefully with a driver, or like dying for
something to eat, like you get in the car, like
I'm still hungry, I've been dancing. You know, something something fabulous.
I don't believe in giving candles or splits of like
(29:47):
cheap champagne or a bunch of other crap, but I
think the something fabulous like a coffee cake or you know,
one of the best things we've done, which is people
who are not having next day brunch, which I understand completely.
Everyone looks hungover and miserable. And we did a breakfast
to go, so you got you had a little Bloody
Mary kit and you got to choose, like did you
(30:09):
want a bunch of bagels, do you want some smoke salmon?
Do you want some crosslines or whatever? And you put
your little bag together and people were like, I got
notes from the guests on that, because some things like
that I think people appreciate, or if there's something truly
truly special. When Joe Bam opened the Rainbow Room and
(30:30):
this is God what year was that, you know, the
Second Incarnation? And they had that giant Chihuli sculpture there
and I still have it. I think it's back here
in my bookshelves. Everyone got in a little bit a
little piece of truly glass. Wow to me, it's all
of these little crumbs. Wow. Did you see the invitation? Wow?
Did you see the Did you see the drink? Did
(30:50):
you see the bartenders they have? Did you you see
the band? And all these little things are going to
add up at the end of the day. You don't
know how it quite the zeitgeis happens. But I tell
people it's not one thing. It's a Joan Nichols. He's
string him together and you've got like twenty bucks and
it and it's alchemy. It is alchemy. I cannot tell
you something so simple and so you would think, you know,
(31:12):
so easy not to overlook things like that make all
the difference. For our fourth and final course, I got
to speak with Marcy about how COVID changed her business
(31:34):
from a tide of wedding cancelations last year to the
flurry of ceremonies this spring and summer. The event planning
industry has been through a lot. I wanted to know
how Marcy is dealing with that whiplash and whether the
pandemic changed what her clients are looking for. So I've
been watching, I mean, just taking an inventory on this industry.
It's kind of fascinating and I mean, this is the
(31:55):
last two years. What's happened is that, I mean it
was going gangbusters before. So we've had this sudden pause
in the world. Now everybody wants to get back in
the world. And it's not just a one one, you
know city coming back on its feet. It's it's a
hundred eighty countries and now trying to sort of like
(32:17):
into some sort of spin control and get back to normal.
So what has happened to you in your business in
a in a global sense, and how are you dealing
with it? Because I can barely. We are so swamp
that for the first time my career, I'm turning down business,
and I'm turning down business that I would have always wanted.
We just can't do it. And and of a client
(32:38):
complaints I'm not paying enough attention. I was like, well,
you could fire me and hire somebody else. But we're
all on the same boat because everyone everyone I know
of inequality is absolutely slammed, and so much so that
we usually help each other, we can't even help each other,
and we're just hiring off the street. You know. It's
really it's crazy. And people made a lot of money
(32:58):
last year. Not only was where people shut in the house.
They also made a lot of money in the stock market.
So wealthy people have money and they want to spend it.
They want to celebrate, they want to see their friends,
they want to see their family, they want to do
something special, they want to treat people. So coming out
of the woodwork, I've never you know, jobs that I
would ordinarily sit around going if I could only get that,
(33:21):
I'm like, I'm not sure we can do it. It's
it's it's really something, and I hope I'm hoping it happens,
you know, for the restaurant business and all our friends
and every other business I know. Travel is still struggling.
The hotel business is still terrible. I don't see it
anything quite frankly, I think that people's perspective on the
shortness of life and the value of time is really
(33:45):
hit home, and they're gonna like we're just gonna we're
gonna step back here and like we're gonna like spend
a little bit more time, have some fun, and like
screw it. A million. I'm so glad you said that,
because you know, everybody I'm around and like, wow, when
the unemployment runs out, and I was like, it's not it.
It's a philosophical really very very very integral philosophical change.
(34:07):
And people who were working. If let's say Waiter was
making sixty grand a year and he could now make
thirty grand a year, has been some time with his
wife and kids, or maybe surfing or wherever at the
end of the day is the difference. Why not? Why
not run them working day and night? And I understand
completely If it's not what you love to do, I
(34:28):
get it. What's the point? So what are people spending
money on now? And what what have you father asking
for that you'd never would, ever in a million years
think that pre pandemic they would ask for, particularly those
those real over the top ones. What do they want
now that they you like, I don't understand it, but
we're gonna give it to him. Headliner Entertainment. I constantly
(34:51):
getting calls how much is Gaga? What do you think
you do? Wow? Oh? Yeah? Yeah? And that goes that budget?
Is no budget? That point to get Gaga? Yeah? Well,
you know, people, even very very very rich people have
no sense of what anything costs, you know, so that
what would that be? A million? I was like, you're
kidding rights? Probably ten? Yeah, exactly, So headline entertainment like
(35:18):
so bringing a band, whatever, whatever, whoever they want, Harry styles,
you name it. It doesn't really matter. And there is nobody.
Everybody is doing an after party. Everybody is doing an
after party, which started maybe five years ago, pre pandemic.
But the guests are growing exponentially. People are now I
want to see everybody I've ever known, but no one is,
(35:40):
so not to the wedding, just the after party. So
there's two events, to the wedding itself and to the
same event invite the guests. That's are growing, growing, growing,
growing at you know, all our weddings with three hundred,
four hundred people, four people. Yeah, yeah, uh. People are
paying more attention, which is a good thing to the ceremony.
(36:01):
I think they're that spirituality that I get to your point.
Everyone sort of really felt their own mortality last year
for sure, right. And when we do a destination wedding, now,
you know, it's tricky because you have to plan everything
by the airline schedules and when people are leaving. So
(36:23):
sometimes we have to do not only next day brunch,
but like day after dinner or something for the guests
who are still there because they're not flying out and
you can't just leave them to their own devices. So
food wise, I want to know what has changed food? Well,
I mean a lot's changed, But what do people want
right now that you're like, wow, they again with that
(36:45):
I get. I just can't believe it. And I'm so
shocked at how we're now serving this where I never
would have served this, and I never would have thought
this would have gone short ribs, which you would have
considered such a such a peasant dish years ago. I
would say nine out of ten. Certainly fall and winter events, weddings,
(37:06):
even corporate and short ribs is the winner, you know,
because they finally people have finally realize what you and
I knew forever that filet mignon has, you know, no
flavor unless it's extraordinary, right, and the combo platter of
the flavor, the texture, the wonderful you know, aromas, everything.
(37:27):
So a lot of people love short ribs. They love
the polenta or you know, wonderful meshed potatoes with it.
It's it's a very earthly, comforting dish that could still,
you know, be elevated to look fabulous for a party
or a wedding. You're a busy lady. I just saw
you three weeks ago, and I could see it in
your in your expression, in your your bodily panicked. You're
(37:53):
you were panicked because you're always in a heightened sense,
but you're extremely heightened having some and call you and say,
I want to do the most over the top blah
blah blah, there is what do I have to do?
It must be the most significantly stressful moment for a
couple of reasons. I would imagine it's stressful because your
(38:14):
left side of your brain is organizing how it's going
to happen, what's all the you know, who's going to
do this? Who am I going to get to do that? Who?
Where the resources coming from? The right side? Is that
the impact trauma of like how we're going to be different,
and how is it gonna all work, and where we're
gonna grab from what's something we haven't done before? And
(38:35):
I would say the merging of those two produces such
a stress that I would love to know how you
handle that stress and and how you compartmentalize many, many
million things at the same time. I think you're absolutely right.
It's very similar to opening a restaurant or uh, embarking
(38:55):
on any artistic project, and I think people go out
at two different possible ways. And the way I go
about it is, let's start with the fantasy before we
before we figure out if it's doable, if it's affordable,
if it's logistically possible, or say what what what's your
(39:16):
wildest dream if you could have anything the same way
you're supposed to go about life, right, what would you
do if you knew you couldn't fail? So the same
thing for approaching an event, and then take that and
see how close you can come to that vision. But
that doesn't describe how you handle the stress. That just
gave me more stress. Now you're like, now you're setting
(39:40):
yourself up for like you're letting someone down on her
day or bed, and particularly this year, it's extremely stressful. Unfortunately,
I think those of us who are you know, have
a modicum of success in it aren't, partially because we
care so much. So there's no way to mitigate it.
(40:03):
I mean, you can meditate, you can drink a little,
you can work out, you know, all the all the
things that help, but at the end of the day,
you know, I will still wake up at four o'clock
in the morning. It's like actors nightmares, like what about
the escort cars? What about the place cars? Even though
they're ordered, it's just it's it's in your DNA. At
(40:24):
that point, you are so fantastic. I could talk to
you what we need cocktails, but I could talk to
you for hours. I have so many more questions. Maybe
another time, but thank you so much for your time.
It's been delightful. As always. I I can't wait to
see you again in whatever state we're in and have
a terrific time. Thank you, Marcia, Thanks Jeffrey, all right,
(40:46):
thanks very much for listening to Four Courses with Jeffrey Zacarrion,
a production of I Heart Radio and Corner Table Entertainment.
Four Courses. It is created by Jeffrey Zacarrion, Margaret Secarrion,
Jared Keller, and Tara Halper. Our executive producer is Christopher Hesiotis.
Four Courses is produced by Jonathan Hawgs Dressler Our Research.
(41:09):
It's conducted by Jescelyn Shields. Our talent booking is by
Pamela Bauer at Dogtown Talent. This episode was edited and
written by Priya Matavan and mixed by Joe Tistle. Special
thanks to Katie Fellman and Marcy Bloom for help as
recording engineers. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit
the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
(41:31):
listen to your favorite shows.
My name is Jeffrey Z Carrien and you're listening to
four Courses with Jeffrey Z Carrian from my Heart Radio.
In four courses, I'll be taking you along for the
ride while I talk with the top talent of our time.
In each conversation, I focus on four different areas from
my guests life and career. And during those four courses,
I'm going to dig deep and uncover new insights and
(00:24):
inspirations that we can all use to fuel ourselves to
push forward. My guest for this episode is an internationally
renowned party and event planner. She's planned weddings and other
events for none other than Billy, Joel lebron and Savannah James,
and the Rockefeller family and also yours. Truly, and according
to many, she's the best in the world at it.
(00:46):
Without further delay, let's get into my conversation with Marcy Bloom. Hi, Marcy.
For our first course, I wanted to understand Marcy's roots
as a kid growing up in the Bronx. It turns
out that her understanding of what made a successful party
started in the kitchen with their mom. When you were
a kid, I know your mom was a great hostess,
(01:09):
like what was what were the things in the house.
Like I say, around six or seven years old, I
remember my the smells and I asked everybody this question,
what was what's cooking? What is the lingering smell in
your household? That was food related and that you can
remember till today. Probably brisket for the holidays, brisket or
my mother's big holiday was Thanksgiving. And my mother was
(01:33):
not only extraordinary hostess, she really was an extraordinary cook.
And my father had delusions of it being a kosher house.
So my mother did her best because she wasn't raised
that way, but he was, so that she took courses
from Simone Beck and James Beard and all of those
people other than Julia, but but simonas who know as
(01:55):
Julia's you know, writing and cooking partner, and uh, she
would come home and try to make these extraordinary French
recipes kosher, which is hilarious because there's not one piece
of meat that doesn't have cream or butter or anything,
which is her boating. But she did a pretty good job.
And she was a great baker as well. So I
(02:17):
grew up with the television pulled into the kitchen, you know,
to watch Julia Child as we were having dinner and
so to me a long answer to a short question.
But I think you know, when I started my business,
people would say, well, you know, especially Visa B weddings,
well really who nobody expects food to be good at weddings.
(02:37):
And I was so horrified by that. I was like,
how could you have an event spend this kind of
money and that kind of time and I think that
the food is it doesn't matter. Maybe it was completely
irrational to me because that's how I was raised. The
party always started with the food. It had to look pretty,
but it always started with the fruit. So your mom's
cooking brisket, you remember, the briskets smell in the house,
(03:00):
by the way, with the spices and some vinegar and
stuff could last a long time, and I would assume
I'm still washing that out of my hair. But you know, so,
I mean, so that's very It's that's you know, I'm
getting hints here now. So Simon Beck verified French food
Julia Child as sort of like a co dependent in
(03:23):
the household. To Kosh your parents. Your dad is a
wholesale supplier, so he got the food wholesale. So you
guys could spend a lot of cash on stuff because
it was cheap. Yeah, he was a wholesale food supplier.
And as I said, I think I was eighteen the
first time I saw a number two can of tuna,
because I thought everything came in number ten tins, so
(03:45):
I thought it was for a doll's house. I was like,
what is that cute little two out scann of tuna?
So you could experiment and it was fine because you
had like it was an endless supply. What a wonderful
thing exactly. And my other was the only person. You know,
we lived in Riverdale. We lived in a nice apartment,
but it certainly wasn't palatial. But she had two freezers
(04:07):
and most of my friends too freezers. She would bake
and freeze and bacon. And she was a full time teacher,
so she did this all in her after hours. Yeah,
so you're very much you're entertained, and you had this,
I mean, that's a rarefied sort of thing, right to
Jewish parents raising someone with a distinctively French motive OPERANDAI
(04:28):
sort of And was your mom the entertainer that you are?
Was she sort of like was she at all inclined
to have large parties. That was she just someone that
would just have a five or six top over. No,
she would, you know, she would with my father's family.
We would split the holidays, so my mother's holiday was Thanksgiving,
(04:50):
and so they would probably be twenty twenty two people
and she would be working on it for a really
long time, cutting out recipes you know you didn't download
them then, and clipping things, and buying new cookbooks and
taking them out of the the library and deciding on the menu.
And then as I got older and was able to participate,
(05:12):
she and I would do it together and come up
with you know, like four different kinds of cranberry something
that we would serve. We really had a lot of fun,
a lot of fun doing it. And this is before
I went to culinary school. So what was so they
give me a menu, give me a very successful turkey
cooking tip that you still use and wait did it
(05:35):
derive from? Was it you? Your mom? Thing? She went
through a lot of different permutations on how to cook turkey.
I remember about ten years ago, all my friends were
deep frying, and then they were not pickling, brining, and
then you know, every time he goes away, go, oh,
my cocaine, just roast turkey and leave us alone. But
(05:58):
but she at the end of the day it was
the long and slow I think it was maybe three
hundred degrees maybe, you know, and it was in there,
and it was a giant thing, and it was in there.
You have to take all the other shelves out of
the oven. Nothing else could go at the same time, right,
and it would it would be in there for many, many,
many hours. So she'd get up at six am put
(06:18):
it in, and you know, if Thanksgiving was it too,
it would be coming out long enough to you know,
sit and and be ready. How did you bake the
other stuff? Was the day before? You'd have to do,
you know, to get the turkey out, put everything else
in the oven. And then later on I think we've
got one of those faba ware or whatever, you know,
second ovens. And it's so funny that you say that,
(06:40):
because I am in the midst I'm doing my kitchen
for the first time ever, and I've always wanted to
do this, and one of my clients was kind enough
to give me a donation because I said I wanted
a wolf ovens, so I have. So I'm finally doing
it and all I care about is having I want
to wall ovens and an under oven, because I yeah,
(07:02):
that's all I care about. Well, you need it. You
need it to entertain. You have to have a warming oven.
You're gonna have a finishing oven, and you gotta have
the main event of it. Otherwise, you know, it's it's
what I have at this at my house too. In
our second course, I had to find out what drew
Marcy into the planning business. After studying acting in high school,
she moved to a farming commune in Vermont when she
(07:23):
was sixteen, and it quickly went south. I had been
living on a commune. It broke up. I didn't know
what I was going to do. So I you know,
I went and sat in my parents apartment and watched
Let's Make a Deal Chris a year and my parents
are like, well, this is not okay. One thing, we
don't see you for five years, but then you come
back and you take over the house. And so my
(07:43):
brother was living in Paris, short story, and he said,
why don't you apply to court in Blue because you
love to cook, And anyway, they accepted me. I went
to court in Blow and I was it was like
I was reborn. I was never very talented chef, but
I love to cook. And it was and you only
get that, in my opinion, a couple of times in
(08:04):
your life. Really that that true love and joy for something,
and you know that is really a gift from the
universe because you can't get enough of it. You know,
you go to sleep with stacks of cookbooks next to
your bed, and and you know post It's and I
mean gourmet magazine. I would read it. You know, it
was like Anna Karenina. I would just like every single
(08:27):
you know, every single recipe, every single aspect. I mean,
it was just I could not get enough and and
and it wasn't as you know, it wasn't very chic.
Then you know, it was nice to be a cook.
And even when I went to c I a later,
you know, the chefs would say, which of course now
they would never have the nerve to say, you know,
you're going to make such a great wife, because you know,
(08:51):
I think it's fascinating that, you know, I think you
and I went to UH and we really found our
calling in the food world more hospitality than myself. But
basically we're in theater. This is theater. This the theater
of the absurd, actually, but it's it is theater rights.
And I think that you, as a as a world
(09:13):
class event planner, must be asked, I want the most absurd,
the most incredible, and you are like relying on your
balance of experience just starting out. What was it that
made you sort of say, listen, I don't want to
do cut the cakes, the bride takes the cake to
blah blah blah bl You know that, it's like I'll
(09:35):
puntil forty years ago, it was the same, you know,
you just it was number one or two in the
blue book. Check the box, send me the check in,
show up on time, and do you want the chicken
or the prime rib? You know, when did you when
did you say you know what this is? I'm going
to shake things up. I guess I think I was
too stupid to even know that things needed to be
shook up. I didn't understand that that's how it went,
(09:58):
you know. And I was so into food and I
was so into hospitality and my personal experience. People are
spending let's say when I started there, spending a couple
hundred thousand. Now, you know, many millions of dollars. If
you're spending that kind of money and all you're looking
(10:19):
at is is the decor you're missing, if not half
three quarters of the rest of it. So how do
you bring that experience? What makes it special? And I
you know, borrows steel plagiarized. I mean the first time
you go to Alan Ducas's restaurant in Monico, when you
see that bread cart, You're like, Okay, why can't we
(10:40):
do that for a party? Why can't we do that
for a wedding? Why not? And you know, cater resorts,
I'm like a big, big I was like, no, that's
not an answer, Like why not? Why not try it?
And you see the delight on guest spaces like I
can't believe we have bread cart or I can't believe
you know some and thought to give me a place
(11:02):
card and seat me next to people who I would
find interesting rather than default with my wife, husband, significant other.
Like how cool is that someone actually thought about my experience?
You know, it sounds like you've got a lot of
a lot of these eccentric cities from your mom your mind,
didn't Your mom used to serve like different kinds of
scotch if everyone liked different scotch. She would serve. I
(11:24):
read a story about that. It sounds like she was
catering to each person, which is kind of brilliant. And
I'm so, you know, look on occasion, I've had clients,
luckily not for many years, and you know who would
be just serve good wine at our table, or just
serve the champagne at our table. And I know that
probably is extraordinary to you, but it happens all the time.
(11:46):
And I would be if I were a guest and
walk past your table and so the DP on your
table and I was drinking, even if it was moved.
It's not the point. The fact that you care so
little about the guests experience would be horror afying to me.
And and to your point. My you know, we I
had two uncles and two other men who were always
(12:07):
part of the family would come to these things that
my mother would go out every year and she would
buy four different kinds of scotch and and the same
thing coke and pepsi. And when I got married, my
now former stepson wouldn't eat turkey or anything. She would
go and get the absolute best steak, you know, she
let it rest and it would broil it for him. Right,
But that's just how she rolled and I just never
(12:31):
saw it any other way. You know. Luckily for me
and my clients, you started around eight six, I believe
really doing it for like seriously, I mean, that is
virtue that there's a lot of very high profile weddings
that went on before. What would people do before that
was sort of it was considered over the top, pre
(12:54):
Marcy Bloom events. What was over the top and was
very supposed predictable in the middle of the tay, you know,
and some of my colleagues and some of my very
talented designer friends, that's what they would do. It would
just be as if someone vomited flowers or you know.
And my line that I always say is, you know,
(13:17):
if you're only looking at that when you're planning an event,
particularly a wedding, it's like you took Brad Pitt or
Angelina Jolie home and they just lay there. That's so true,
and I have many events I've gone to. It's it's
suffocating the amount of flowers and you can't see you
(13:37):
can't see anyone, you can't see the person across from you.
There's no subtlety, there's no it's just one shot. There's
no art you know, artistry, there's no there's no theater,
no for our third course. I knew that Marcy could
(14:06):
share some incredibly event planning insights. I wanted to know
what goes through her head as she balances her big
picture vision for an event with her ongoing checklist of
small tasks. She said, it all boils down to one
important shift in her perspective. You have to walk it
through as if you're a guest, not as if you're
(14:26):
the host or a bride or a groom, because you're
always gonna get taken care of. You are a guest.
From the moment you pull up in your uber or
you're driving your car. What's going on is someone opening
the car door? Is uh someone escorting you inside or
to the place to give your coat away, which, by
the way, one of the things makes me cuckoo is
(14:48):
lines for the coat room. You have to have runners.
You have to have people just take your coat and
give you a ticket and they can worry about it
in the back of the house, even if it's mayhem,
which it most often is. I don't care. But when's
your first drink and what is it? What are you
listening to what are the lights? What makes you feel
that someone's happy that you are there? Specifically you are there,
(15:11):
is um someone greeting you, even if it's not the
host and hostess. Who are you know, presumably too busy,
especially that your paths get married. But someone from my team,
someone from another hospitality team, and then what happens? Are
you confused about where to go? Are you confused about
where the restrooms are? Is someone standing in the vest
(15:32):
of you when you leave the restroom? Don't let me
show you where the dining room is, or let me
show you where the coculator, all the things that you
know people are. They don't want to be embarrassed. They
don't like to feel insecure, certainly not when they're arriving
at an event. So you want to mitigate any confusion
about where they're going, who there with. You don't want
someone on a line for hours looking for their escort card,
(15:56):
which makes people panic because they think that maybe there
was a mistake and they're not on that table. When
you see people's eyes, you see them pale. So you
always have people there with the iPads. Let me just
just tell me your name, don't bother looking for that
are all handed to you. Later you will have to
be sort of, you know, nurtured and nestled around it
every single moment. So and then when you plan the
(16:19):
movement of the evening, well, I want to get my
first dance out of the way because I'm really nervous.
Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Okay, but if
you get your first dance out of the way, and
then I thought, and then we'll just sit down. But
that's not fair to people, because once you start dancing,
people want to dance. So even though that looks to
you like it would make you most comfortable, why don't
(16:39):
we look about what you would feel as a guest.
And when I worked with difficult people who don't want
to say it but really don't care about what what
happens with the guests, I will say, well, you know,
I've never met anybody, bridegroom, host, hostess who's happy when
their guests are not happy. So why don't we Why
don't we try to turn it a round and see
(17:00):
the guest experience. First, We're going to take care of you.
You are not the issue. It's the rest of these people.
So in other words, it's basically, you want to seduce
the guests. It's not about the gut throwing a party
for the guests, and the bride and groom have the
privilege of throwing a party. Kind of turn it on
(17:20):
the tail, right, And I don't think a lot of
people think of it like that. The same way, if
you're doing, you know, a rehearsal dinner, it's it's uh,
you know, classic. Now it's a little trite to do
a montage of some sort, you know, almost like a
Borman's vote. Like photographs, and I'm always saying that people
include as many photos of the other people in the room.
(17:41):
Nobody wants to look at your photos unless it's your grandmother,
right for more than three minutes. But when I'm including,
oh my god, look that's when we were in the
Amalfi Coast together, that it reminds people why they're there,
why you have them there, And it's just, you know,
so such an easy thing to do, and it's not
the narcissism of these events is what is poison and
(18:06):
it doesn't have to be. And people as often because
people aren't thinking, not that they don't care, they're just
not thinking. Yeah, And your job is to sort of
focus them on stuff they would never think of, because
you are really throwing an event. It is not you're
not you're not marrying them. They're getting married, but you're
throwing them an event to commemorate that. That's everything is
(18:28):
that guest experience. It's like, if they're not seduced, the
party is gonna suck, exactly. And you could spend you know,
you could be serving troubles that were just you know,
flown in from Alba over the most extraordinary pasta. It
doesn't matter unless they feel nurtured and wanted and part
of this community that you're creating. Even if it's just
(18:48):
for the night, it's not gonna fly, not gonna fly.
And it's really what you said is really important. I
think a lot of people don't understand. Like when you
have a restaurant, you know, we have practice nights and
then we we launch right, and then we launch and
then we every day we like trundlet along. We try
to do what we're supposed to do. We do it well,
once in a while we stumble, and then the next
(19:09):
day we do it better. With a wedding, with an event,
people are spending millions of dollars. You basically have ninety
minutes to get it right or your your reputation is
like shot. It's that no one's coming back tomorrow. I mean,
the worst thing that someone could say is like that
was nice. Right. Someone once told me you can spend
(19:30):
as much money as you want, and no one is
going to talk about anything other than how much shrimp
there was at the table at the buffet table standing
by the kitchen, right, exactly, No one's gonna that's what.
That's all I care about, you know. So I gotta
I gotta ask these questions because I know we all
we've had, like you know, things didn't go well and
all that. How do you pull out of a disaster?
(19:52):
Have you had some close calls where I'm not talking
about lightning hitting or rain hitting. I mean, that's just
like a way it is. I'm talking about like clients
who are just one step away from, you know, being
pushed into moving traffic. I mean I've had it. I've
had it often. I certainly had it much worse when
(20:13):
I was younger in my business, when I had less gravitas.
I'm a little more obnoxious now if they do that,
But I wanted. You know, we have in our office
a giant blown up copy of an email from a client,
and this is this is really interesting. I was trying
to create a very different kind of dining scenario, which
(20:37):
i'll explain too quickly, and I just I couldn't grasp it.
They wanted to do, of course, served food almost like
dim sum, but they didn't want to seat people at
regular tables, and it was just very, very difficult. And finally,
and the bride's father, who is a tough cookie, we're
(20:57):
now friends, but man, every day he called me, He's like,
I can't believe this, Like, you know, like, where's the numbers,
Where's it this? I said, It's not that I'm not
working on you, I just I cannot get the concept.
And finally, like in the middle of the night, I
had this epiphany, and we've designed it basically after what's
it called him in the Breakers that restaurant where the
(21:22):
tables are twenty eight inches high instead of thirty inches high.
And consequently you can actually have a full meal sitting
on a couch without putting it on your lap, because
you can actually lean on the table and cut and eat.
It's it's extraordinary teeny little detail that changes everything. And
then we sat people in like pods or lounges as
(21:47):
opposed to tables, so like you know, there's two couches
to set teas that we figured out and then and
that's how And it was one of the best weddings
I've ever done. And I have an email from the
father of the bride, may a couple, may a couple,
maya Coppa. I cannot believe you know you people are
extraordinary And and I said to him, I said, it's
(22:09):
not that you were wrong. I could understand you being nervous.
But I always say to people now, I say to
my clients, I was like, don't ask to see my
homework because I'm not going to show you the long division.
You just just count on the fact that it's going
to be wonderful. It just sometimes it takes me a
while to get there. And it's not you know, it's
(22:29):
just for lack of inspiration, not for lack of trying. No.
And it's also what you said was really crucial there
is that the skill set that you need to have
now versus forty years ago is extraordinary. I mean, you're
you're you're a communicator, you're a swingari, you're a you're
a chef, you're a psychotherapist, you're a hostage negotiator, epidemiologist.
(22:58):
And I'm also and to be an expert on MERV
thirteen and hep A filters as of last week. As recently. Yeah,
I've been adding every year to my resume. It's extraordinary.
I'm a technical engineer and an epidemiologist. I would think, though,
that these skills set of someone like yourself, because I
know how rare it is. There can't be too many
(23:21):
people that do what you do with sort of the
background that you've come about it with. I mean, I
mean you have to have like real, you know, balls
of steel to listen to these people. Because I have
the same people with my restaurant. I don't know how
you deal with them. How do you deal with difficult
these difficult people that have money And I don't mean
that money and difficulty go together. Sometimes they do, sometimes
(23:43):
sometimes they don't. But how do you deal with someone
who thinks they know everything? I'll tell you there's two
different possibilities here. And I've had a bunch of difficult
clients who actually we're smarter than I am, and that's
a different kind of uh obnoxious. I mean we did
let's say, you know, Donnie Deutsch's fiftieth birthday, right, and
(24:04):
he was always you know, Marcy, what about this? And
I would because he's so obnoxious. At the end of
the day, he taught me a lot, you know, so
you have to be I think arrogance, as you know,
is basically you know, the killer of maybe you know
just about everybody, but certainly any entrepreneur. I think my
(24:26):
lack maybe my my personal insecurity and my lack of
that kind of arrogance has really stood me well. So
when it's difficult people, I really have to think for
a second before I before i'd be like screw, you
have to be like, wait a minute, do they know
something that maybe I haven't learned. Half the time, my
filter is I'm soon they're going mortgage payments, trip to Italy.
(24:48):
You know that's sometimes that's the only way to get
through it, right. You know, you can't sell anything just
based on my being obnoxious. I have to let people
make their own session. At the end of the day,
it's their wedding, it's their party, it's their money. I
will never say, but how could you ever that's not
my business is to be a chameleon and make their
(25:09):
experience their experience as fabulous as it can be. I
am not in the business of telling people what to
do unless it pertains to safety or you know, just
outright stupidity, like no, you can't make your guests walk
thirty blocks. You have to do transportation. It's just not nice,
(25:30):
you I I have. I would imagine the conversations when
you're brought into someone says, we want to we don't
get married, we want to hire you. This is what
we want. That first conversation until the wedding must be
like a remarkable sneak peek into their life question and
I could tell you, maybe within nine chance of who's
(25:51):
going to last and who is on occasion. I'm wrong,
but but certainly the process of planning a wedding is
extremely indicative of the inner workings of their relationship. For sure. Yeah,
you have some rules you taught me, like one of
the rules of a good Give me some timing issues,
because people get lost in weddings and it just drags
(26:13):
on and it's just an awful Like give me the
rules of the road. Cocktail hour should be around an
hour unless you know, if you're doing an Orthodox Jewish wedding,
for example, there's all these other rituals involved that are
in the contail hour, so an hour and a half.
But what it shouldn't be is the guests should not
be kept from being seated because the bride and groom
(26:34):
were taking their photographs like that, really, and so I
don't care what they have to do too, you know,
truncate their shot list. But absolutely you can't because that
pauses not only drunk and miserable people, but resentment. You know, yeah,
our cocktail, then what? And then I think dinner service.
(26:56):
I mean, my favorite party, if I were getting married again,
would be an hour and twenty minutes. Is pretty much
three course dinner, that's it. Background music, fabulous background music,
not elevator music, something clever, innovative, and then kick ass
dancing after that. So you have people who don't love
(27:17):
to dance, or people who want to drink good wines,
eat good food, talk to the people at their table,
get an hour and twenty minutes to do that, and
the kids as soon as they're finishing, and get to
have this crazy, fabulous dance party. And I think it
makes everyone happy. So two and a half hours, three
hours max. And what's the rule of the bride and
the groom going to see everyone? If you have three
(27:39):
hundred people, how could they possibly spend If they spend
a minute with each person, that's three hundred minutes and
there's no there's no time. What do you do? It's ridiculous.
So I remember, you know, when I started one of
my first big jobs, maybe three years in, was Nelson
Rockefeller's granddaughter, and I remember Stephen Rockefeller, the bride's father,
and listing on a receiving line. Of course, I had
(28:01):
never heard of such a thing. I had to go
look up Emily post Well. I was like, I had
no idea what the hell he was talking about. And
I was so perplexed. I was like, well, the three
guess right, a minute, thirty seconds endless. And as it
turns out, it was endless. But in a social you know,
certain social strata, they were used to it. They were like, well,
(28:22):
get on the receiving high. You know, it's like Jesus.
So one of the reasons to have a rehearsal dinner
you get to say a lot, a load to a
lot of people there. And I personally even though it
used to be considered you know, I guess sort of ghost.
I don't know why I like the bride and groom
(28:42):
to give a toast at their wedding. I know you
do when you cut the cake and then say, you
know how much we love all of you. We really
wanted to have fun at our wedding. We hope you
had fun. So that's why we didn't trek around to
all the tables. But please know that that doesn't mean
that we love you any less. You know, no. Three
and that's a three guests. It would be two and
a half hours. You wouldn't get a chance to dance. Okay,
(29:04):
So we're done with the wedding where escorting people are
people are leaving? So are we giving? Is this today
at two twenty one? Is there something? Is there a
gift giving to the the guests get something to take
with them. Is that something that's chic today? I love
to give something, you know, if it's financially feasible, But
(29:27):
I love to give something edible. I think, you know,
especially drunk people getting in their cars or getting something,
you know, hopefully with a driver, or like dying for
something to eat, like you get in the car, like
I'm still hungry, I've been dancing. You know, something something fabulous.
I don't believe in giving candles or splits of like
(29:47):
cheap champagne or a bunch of other crap, but I
think the something fabulous like a coffee cake or you know,
one of the best things we've done, which is people
who are not having next day brunch, which I understand completely.
Everyone looks hungover and miserable. And we did a breakfast
to go, so you got you had a little Bloody
Mary kit and you got to choose, like did you
(30:09):
want a bunch of bagels, do you want some smoke salmon?
Do you want some crosslines or whatever? And you put
your little bag together and people were like, I got
notes from the guests on that, because some things like
that I think people appreciate, or if there's something truly
truly special. When Joe Bam opened the Rainbow Room and
(30:30):
this is God what year was that, you know, the
Second Incarnation? And they had that giant Chihuli sculpture there
and I still have it. I think it's back here
in my bookshelves. Everyone got in a little bit a
little piece of truly glass. Wow to me, it's all
of these little crumbs. Wow. Did you see the invitation? Wow?
Did you see the Did you see the drink? Did
(30:50):
you see the bartenders they have? Did you you see
the band? And all these little things are going to
add up at the end of the day. You don't
know how it quite the zeitgeis happens. But I tell
people it's not one thing. It's a Joan Nichols. He's
string him together and you've got like twenty bucks and
it and it's alchemy. It is alchemy. I cannot tell
you something so simple and so you would think, you know,
(31:12):
so easy not to overlook things like that make all
the difference. For our fourth and final course, I got
to speak with Marcy about how COVID changed her business
(31:34):
from a tide of wedding cancelations last year to the
flurry of ceremonies this spring and summer. The event planning
industry has been through a lot. I wanted to know
how Marcy is dealing with that whiplash and whether the
pandemic changed what her clients are looking for. So I've
been watching, I mean, just taking an inventory on this industry.
It's kind of fascinating and I mean, this is the
(31:55):
last two years. What's happened is that, I mean it
was going gangbusters before. So we've had this sudden pause
in the world. Now everybody wants to get back in
the world. And it's not just a one one, you
know city coming back on its feet. It's it's a
hundred eighty countries and now trying to sort of like
(32:17):
into some sort of spin control and get back to normal.
So what has happened to you in your business in
a in a global sense, and how are you dealing
with it? Because I can barely. We are so swamp
that for the first time my career, I'm turning down business,
and I'm turning down business that I would have always wanted.
We just can't do it. And and of a client
(32:38):
complaints I'm not paying enough attention. I was like, well,
you could fire me and hire somebody else. But we're
all on the same boat because everyone everyone I know
of inequality is absolutely slammed, and so much so that
we usually help each other, we can't even help each other,
and we're just hiring off the street. You know. It's
really it's crazy. And people made a lot of money
(32:58):
last year. Not only was where people shut in the house.
They also made a lot of money in the stock market.
So wealthy people have money and they want to spend it.
They want to celebrate, they want to see their friends,
they want to see their family, they want to do
something special, they want to treat people. So coming out
of the woodwork, I've never you know, jobs that I
would ordinarily sit around going if I could only get that,
(33:21):
I'm like, I'm not sure we can do it. It's
it's it's really something, and I hope I'm hoping it happens,
you know, for the restaurant business and all our friends
and every other business I know. Travel is still struggling.
The hotel business is still terrible. I don't see it
anything quite frankly, I think that people's perspective on the
shortness of life and the value of time is really
(33:45):
hit home, and they're gonna like we're just gonna we're
gonna step back here and like we're gonna like spend
a little bit more time, have some fun, and like
screw it. A million. I'm so glad you said that,
because you know, everybody I'm around and like, wow, when
the unemployment runs out, and I was like, it's not it.
It's a philosophical really very very very integral philosophical change.
(34:07):
And people who were working. If let's say Waiter was
making sixty grand a year and he could now make
thirty grand a year, has been some time with his
wife and kids, or maybe surfing or wherever at the
end of the day is the difference. Why not? Why
not run them working day and night? And I understand
completely If it's not what you love to do, I
(34:28):
get it. What's the point? So what are people spending
money on now? And what what have you father asking
for that you'd never would, ever in a million years
think that pre pandemic they would ask for, particularly those
those real over the top ones. What do they want
now that they you like, I don't understand it, but
we're gonna give it to him. Headliner Entertainment. I constantly
(34:51):
getting calls how much is Gaga? What do you think
you do? Wow? Oh? Yeah? Yeah? And that goes that budget?
Is no budget? That point to get Gaga? Yeah? Well,
you know, people, even very very very rich people have
no sense of what anything costs, you know, so that
what would that be? A million? I was like, you're
kidding rights? Probably ten? Yeah, exactly, So headline entertainment like
(35:18):
so bringing a band, whatever, whatever, whoever they want, Harry styles,
you name it. It doesn't really matter. And there is nobody.
Everybody is doing an after party. Everybody is doing an
after party, which started maybe five years ago, pre pandemic.
But the guests are growing exponentially. People are now I
want to see everybody I've ever known, but no one is,
(35:40):
so not to the wedding, just the after party. So
there's two events, to the wedding itself and to the
same event invite the guests. That's are growing, growing, growing,
growing at you know, all our weddings with three hundred,
four hundred people, four people. Yeah, yeah, uh. People are
paying more attention, which is a good thing to the ceremony.
(36:01):
I think they're that spirituality that I get to your point.
Everyone sort of really felt their own mortality last year
for sure, right. And when we do a destination wedding, now,
you know, it's tricky because you have to plan everything
by the airline schedules and when people are leaving. So
(36:23):
sometimes we have to do not only next day brunch,
but like day after dinner or something for the guests
who are still there because they're not flying out and
you can't just leave them to their own devices. So
food wise, I want to know what has changed food? Well,
I mean a lot's changed, But what do people want
right now that you're like, wow, they again with that
(36:45):
I get. I just can't believe it. And I'm so
shocked at how we're now serving this where I never
would have served this, and I never would have thought
this would have gone short ribs, which you would have
considered such a such a peasant dish years ago. I
would say nine out of ten. Certainly fall and winter events, weddings,
(37:06):
even corporate and short ribs is the winner, you know,
because they finally people have finally realize what you and
I knew forever that filet mignon has, you know, no
flavor unless it's extraordinary, right, and the combo platter of
the flavor, the texture, the wonderful you know, aromas, everything.
(37:27):
So a lot of people love short ribs. They love
the polenta or you know, wonderful meshed potatoes with it.
It's it's a very earthly, comforting dish that could still,
you know, be elevated to look fabulous for a party
or a wedding. You're a busy lady. I just saw
you three weeks ago, and I could see it in
your in your expression, in your your bodily panicked. You're
(37:53):
you were panicked because you're always in a heightened sense,
but you're extremely heightened having some and call you and say,
I want to do the most over the top blah
blah blah, there is what do I have to do?
It must be the most significantly stressful moment for a
couple of reasons. I would imagine it's stressful because your
(38:14):
left side of your brain is organizing how it's going
to happen, what's all the you know, who's going to
do this? Who am I going to get to do that? Who?
Where the resources coming from? The right side? Is that
the impact trauma of like how we're going to be different,
and how is it gonna all work, and where we're
gonna grab from what's something we haven't done before? And
(38:35):
I would say the merging of those two produces such
a stress that I would love to know how you
handle that stress and and how you compartmentalize many, many
million things at the same time. I think you're absolutely right.
It's very similar to opening a restaurant or uh, embarking
(38:55):
on any artistic project, and I think people go out
at two different possible ways. And the way I go
about it is, let's start with the fantasy before we
before we figure out if it's doable, if it's affordable,
if it's logistically possible, or say what what what's your
(39:16):
wildest dream if you could have anything the same way
you're supposed to go about life, right, what would you
do if you knew you couldn't fail? So the same
thing for approaching an event, and then take that and
see how close you can come to that vision. But
that doesn't describe how you handle the stress. That just
gave me more stress. Now you're like, now you're setting
(39:40):
yourself up for like you're letting someone down on her
day or bed, and particularly this year, it's extremely stressful. Unfortunately,
I think those of us who are you know, have
a modicum of success in it aren't, partially because we
care so much. So there's no way to mitigate it.
(40:03):
I mean, you can meditate, you can drink a little,
you can work out, you know, all the all the
things that help, but at the end of the day,
you know, I will still wake up at four o'clock
in the morning. It's like actors nightmares, like what about
the escort cars? What about the place cars? Even though
they're ordered, it's just it's it's in your DNA. At
(40:24):
that point, you are so fantastic. I could talk to
you what we need cocktails, but I could talk to
you for hours. I have so many more questions. Maybe
another time, but thank you so much for your time.
It's been delightful. As always. I I can't wait to
see you again in whatever state we're in and have
a terrific time. Thank you, Marcia, Thanks Jeffrey, all right,
(40:46):
thanks very much for listening to Four Courses with Jeffrey Zacarrion,
a production of I Heart Radio and Corner Table Entertainment.
Four Courses. It is created by Jeffrey Zacarrion, Margaret Secarrion,
Jared Keller, and Tara Halper. Our executive producer is Christopher Hesiotis.
Four Courses is produced by Jonathan Hawgs Dressler Our Research.
(41:09):
It's conducted by Jescelyn Shields. Our talent booking is by
Pamela Bauer at Dogtown Talent. This episode was edited and
written by Priya Matavan and mixed by Joe Tistle. Special
thanks to Katie Fellman and Marcy Bloom for help as
recording engineers. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit
the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
(41:31):
listen to your favorite shows.
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