Redbook

Lisa Fogarty 8/28/2017

Planning a wedding is one of the most stressful things you can do in life, which makes wedding planners – who take on all that anxiety with gusto – the embodiment of the calm before the wedding storm. When Chrissy Teigen and John Legend hired wedding planner Lisa Vorce to coordinate what would become one of the most high-profile wedding celebrations of 2013, the seasoned pro found herself dealing with the dream dilemma: The celeb couple was so easygoing that they looked to Vorce to help them build everything from the ground up.

“To design their wedding, I first got to know and understand them (amazing!), then I took a look at the venue (Lake Como – also amazing!),” Vorce says. “From there, I created a ‘mood board’ that was a reflection of the colors, architecture, and topography of Lake Como, along with the vibe of John and Chrissy. John and Chrissy then chose what most resonated with them, and the rest is history.”

Vorce grew up in Southern California and says she had a big extended family who would throw huge, elaborate parties – nothing fancy, but always festive, fun, and replete with good food. “My childhood parties cultivated my understanding of the logistics involved in events, and the understanding that the guest experience is so important – I want everyone to have a great time in a beautiful, happy setting,” Vorce says.

She majored in Rhetoric at UC Berkeley – which isn’t exactly the concentration you think would be helpful when choosing wedding color schemes for the most photographed celebrities on the planet. What it provided, Vorce says, was a solid foundation in logic and persuasion – something that will come in handy when you have to convince a bride and groom that monsoon season could kill their dream venue plans. Vorce worked in the corporate world after college and met her husband James, whose uncle founded a talent agency and who was hosting several private parties in Los Angeles at the time. When he requested Vorce’s help planning a birthday party for Nina Clooney (yes, as in George’s mom), Vorce’s childhood party girl instinct kicked in.

“I had a blast, and my handwritten phone number on the party cocktail napkins became my first business cards as an event planner,” Vorce says. “I literally worked for free (and for very little) during the first few years of my business, but it was worth it because I developed my clientele and I learned on the job. I don’t think there’s really a way you can study event planning in a book – a majority of what is needed comes from experience in the field.”

© Aaron Delesie

Vorce has come a long way since then, and boasts a roster of A-list celebrities and high-profile clients that include Teigen and Legend, Mark-Paul Gosselaar and wife Catriona, and Curtis Stone and Lindsay Price. She has confidentiality agreements for many of her clients, but revealed that (hurray!) Teigen and Legend are as lovely and “beautiful inside and out” as they seem. A quick glance at Vorce’s portfolio of gallery photos proves that, whether she’s throwing a Santa Barbara wedding that pays homage to Americana (complete with a bluegrass band and ginger mule cocktails) or a Bohemian Rhapsody garden wedding party with hand-painted dinner menus and antique pillow cushions, she knows there’s no such thing as a minor detail. And she considers herself beholden not just to the bride and groom, but to every person attending their wedding.

“I like to think that one thing that sets me apart is my sense of taste and design and the ability to infuse authenticity and soul in those designs,” Vorce says. “Our greatest differentiator, however, is our focus on the guest experience. From start to finish, the guests have access to me and my studio, so they are handheld and taken care of the same way the bride and groom is.”

Not only does Vorce treat her clients with the utmost of care, but she says she extends that same level of respect to guests. She describes weddings as “stressful” even on a good day, and compares wedding planning to creating a movie set for the day – one where you’re also inviting 200 guests for dinner and dealing with potential weather curveballs. There’s also, she says, a “huge emotional component” of wedding planning. After all, everyone from the bride’s parents to the groom’s fourth cousin is rooting for the couple to have the dream day they’ve imagined for years.

“I work 7 days a week and all through the night if that is what I need to do,” Vorce says. “Since its inception 18 years ago, Lisa Vorce Co. has become a well-oiled machine. In general, I’ve always had an ability to coordinate details with military-like precision, but what I do better now is adapt to any situation and think on my feet.”

You don’t have to be on the cover of People every week to hire a wedding planner, and doing so (within your personal budget) can save you from a few common disasters. Not sure what to do if the weather doesn’t hold up on your big day? A wedding expert always has a Plan B – and will look into things like pesky noise ordinance codes that could shut down your party earlier than expected. Are stale Pinterest wedding trends making you feel uninspired? One of the tasks Vorce takes on as a planner is to incorporate local artisans into her designs and infuse elements of her clients’ personalities into every detail – she calls these the “magic recipe for all things purposeful and authentic.”

Vorce brings that kind of authenticity to her wedding work regardless of whether the client is famous – or whether the guest list includes 400 people or just two. “I receive ‘wedding for two’ requests quite frequently,” Vorce says. “Couples ask me to produce and design a destination event just for the two of them – but different from an elopement in that we have all the key aspects of a wedding: cake, music, photo, video, etc.”

Because at the end of the day, a wedding planner is in the business not for the love of celebrity weddings, but for the love of love itself.

Planning a wedding is one of the most stressful things you can do in life, which makes wedding planners – who take on all that anxiety with gusto – the embodiment of the calm before the wedding storm. When Chrissy Teigen and John Legend hired wedding planner Lisa Vorce to coordinate what would become one of the most high-profile wedding celebrations of 2013, the seasoned pro found herself dealing with the dream dilemma: The celeb couple was so easygoing that they looked to Vorce to help them build everything from the ground up.

“To design their wedding, I first got to know and understand them (amazing!), then I took a look at the venue (Lake Como – also amazing!),” Vorce says. “From there, I created a ‘mood board’ that was a reflection of the colors, architecture, and topography of Lake Como, along with the vibe of John and Chrissy. John and Chrissy then chose what most resonated with them, and the rest is history.”