Getting to “I do”

Patience and composure are key to
ensuring a smooth wedding, says planner

by CHRIS BARRY

Name: Sabrina Di Nardo

Age: 27

Occupation: Wedding planner/High school teacher

Bio: When this energized NDG gal ain’t out in the bowels of Laval teaching English and art to high school students, she’s running around in the service of her wedding planning biz, Sabrina Di Nardo Events (www.sabrinadinardoevents.com). “At one point, I tried giving up teaching to do wedding planning full-time but just couldn’t. I still love teaching too much.” A talented visual artist, Sabrina got her first taste of the marriage industry designing wedding invitations, and then, soon after getting married herself, discovered she was “totally obsessed with the whole planning thing.” So, one “short but intense” course later at Toronto’s Wedding Planners Institute of Canada to help make her official, roughly three years ago Sabrina Di Nardo Events was born. She drives a practical 2001 Volks Jetta TDI.

Two personal virtues/attributes Sabrina feels every wedding planner should possess: “Patience and composure. Composure is the Queen’s finest jewel, I like to say. It’s all about self-control. You see, usually about one week before any wedding, there will be freak-outs—when the shit hits the fan and there’s plenty of drama. That’s when, as a wedding planner, you’ve got to keep everybody cool because you’re usually the mediator, the psychologist and all of that stuff. So you absolutely cannot lose your cool, there’d just be too many repercussions. Composure is key.”

Does she ever refuse potential clients just because she can tell way in advance that they fully intend on driving her crazy before anybody in their party gets married? “Yes.”

How long she spends planning the average wedding: “At least a year.”

The least expensive wedding she’s organized to date: “It cost about $25,000, but we managed to throw a pretty large wedding for that amount of money.”

The most expensive: $100K.

The average: “About $40 or $50K.”

Is she generally paid a flat rate or does she get a percentage of the budget? Flat rate.

How come every service provider—like, for example, a musician who will happily do a gig on the Main for $80 a night—insists on being paid five times that amount just because they hear the word “wedding?” What the hell kind of racket do all these people who work the wedding beat have going on anyway? “Oh yeah, I know this myself. It’s like when you go to the hairdresser before your wedding. Suddenly, the hairdresser is giving you a bridal package, which means she pretty much does the same thing to your hair except it costs another $80. It frustrates everybody because, you know, these people are taking advantage of the industry.”

So why don’t targets simply say, “Fuck you and your bridal package, thief! Just gimme a haircut, for fuck’s sake!”? “Sure, you could do that and I’m sure people have, but you know, when you come into a salon with a troupe of 10 women, your bridesmaids and everybody, like, they usually figure it out.”

Childhood ambition: To become an artist and a teacher.

Last book read: Chic: The Guide to Life as It Should Be, by Colin Cowie.

Musical preferences: CCR, Sam Roberts, Acrobat.

Words of wisdom: “When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.”

Comments: dimwit@hdot.net