>
It was the stellar event that should have been a joyous milestone in the career of even the most illustrious luxury wedding planners.
Yet while the world watched in delighted fascination when Brooklyn Beckham married Nicola Peltz last year, the entire celebration turned hopelessly sour for two women involved in its planning but who were fired at the last minute.
Last week, the father of the bride, billionaire Nelson Peltz, filed a lawsuit demanding that wedding planners Nicole Braghin and Arianna Grijalba return his $159,000 deposit for alleged “mistakes.”
But last night, in a world exclusive interview with The Mail on Sunday, the couple slammed what they say is a ‘frivolous’ lawsuit.
Speaking from their Florida homes, they claimed they worked around the clock to ensure the $3.5m (£2.9m) wedding went off without a hitch last April.
Brooklyn Beckham (left) married actress Nicola Peltz (right) in 2022, in Palm Beach, Florida.
The women have spent 17 years building their business, Plan Design Events, and say they have never filed a single complaint against it before. According to the wedding planners:
- Bride Nicola sent them a gushing text the day before they were fired saying: ‘You’re killing it!’
- They worked 17-hour days and claim they are owed more than $159,000 for the work they did.
- Brooklyn Beckham was “sweet” and “a gentleman” and sent them a message saying: “Thank you so much for all you’re doing.”
Nicole, a 42-year-old mother of two who was born in Brazil and came to the US at age ten, said, “We love what we do and we’re good at it,” adding that “not once at that time’ have they ever felt ‘intimidated or disrespected by one of our clients’.
‘My daughter gives the best job description when she says “my mommy makes dreams come true.” If Mr. Peltz’s mission was to damage our reputation, impact our business, and harm our families, then mission accomplished.”
The women were approached by Peltz, 80, and his third wife, Claudia, 67, a former model, on February 23 of last year.
Wedding planners Nicole Braghin (right) and Arianna Grijalba (left) criticized the $159,000 lawsuit filed by the father of the bride, billionaire Nelson Peltz.
The Peltzes had big plans for a three-day wedding extravaganza at the family’s £75m estate in Palm Beach, Florida. Five hundred guests from around the world flew in as the groom’s parents David and Victoria Beckham were joined by Eva Longoria, Gordon Ramsay, Serena and Venus Williams and many other famous friends. In the lawsuit, Peltz describes his daughter as an international star, saying, “Nicola is a world-renowned actress who has starred in hit movies and television shows including, but not limited to, Transformers: Age of Extinction, Bates Motel and The Last Airbender”. .’
The Peltzes had been working for nearly a year with wedding planner Preston Bailey, an industry icon who organized the weddings of Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael Douglas and Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner.
Peltz claims that the two women ‘faked’ each other and proved incapable of pulling off such a complex event.
The lawsuit contains emails in which Nicola tells planners she is ‘tired of catching’ their mistakes.
Nicole and Arianna cannot comment on the details of the case for legal reasons.
But her lawyer, David Rosemberg, told the MoS that the lawsuit does not paint a complete picture: ‘My clients have impeccable reputations within the event planning industry and among their high-end clientele around the world. They operate their business with the utmost integrity and discretion.
‘The lawsuit filed by Nelson Peltz is frivolous and unimpressive. Relevant and complete emails and text messages addressing the misleading statements contained in the complaint will be disclosed as part of my clients’ response to the complaint, including in support of the counterclaim they intend to file.’
The aspiring chef, 23, and the actress, 27, had an extravagant three-day wedding.
In his lawsuit, Peltz claims the women were out of his league: “During the nine days of negotiations… (they) failed to hire a single new wedding vendor, failed to finalize the terms of any agreement with any of the vendors who had previously been selected by Peltz and his family and did not attend previously scheduled meetings with Peltz’.
Rosemberg said: “No one has seen all the texts or any of the emails.”
The MoS understands that wedding planners will reveal texts showing that their work was praised. In a text message from Nicola Peltz on March 3, he writes: ‘You’re killing him!’ In another, Brooklyn writes: “Thank you guys so much for all you’re doing.”
Arianna says: ‘Brooklyn is a very sweet person. He treated us with respect and courtesy. He is a gentleman. We have nothing but respect for the Beckhams. A text from Nicola’s assistant, sent after the planners were fired, praises them for “doing shit.”
The women claim that Mr. Peltz called Arianna after the women were fired.
She says, ‘Two days after we got fired, Nelson called me and said, ‘Arianna, are you crying?’ And I said, “No, why would she be crying herself?”
‘And he said, ‘Okay, so you’re laughing now?’ and I said, “No.”
“Then he went quiet and I went quiet and he said ‘I don’t know why I called you,’ and then he hung up.”
The Peltz family hired a third wedding planner, Michelle Rago, who, according to Peltz, ended up charging her extra because she was hired on such short notice.
Additional information: Daniel Bates in New York