Weddings at Home

It's where the heart is

The warmth and originality of an at-home wedding is hard to match. Plus, the venue -- and the surprises -- come free of charge.

By Janet Eastman

Thursday July 22, 2004

LIKE marriage itself, a wedding ceremony has its ups and downs. If the event takes place in a home, it can overflow with meaning and sentimentality. Imagine a bride getting ready in her old bedroom or vows being exchanged under a tree that the couple played on when they were kids.

But a home-style event can also create tragicomic turns. Unlike a hotel, where pros run the show, anything can -- and has -- happened at home weddings. Temperamental plumbing. Missing silver. Wired guests who keep the place rocking until breakfast time.

Yet couples love a wedding reception at a residence because it has a warmth unmatched by that of any rented venue, says Mindy Weiss, a Beverly Hills-based special events planner who has organized weddings at homes for privacy-seeking celebrity couples Gwen Stefani and Gavin Rossdale, Denise Richards and Charlie Sheen, and Tori Spelling and Charlie Shanian.

"Family photos are out, and it's inviting and cozy," Weiss says.

Also, because it is usually held at a relative's or friend's house, the space doesn't need to be booked a year in advance, and there's no rental fee.

Home weddings can be modest celebrations in which guests eat homemade food served on paper plates and dance to the radio, or expensive ones with hired bartenders, food servers and valets, and rented tents, dance floors and portable generators for elaborate lighting.

Of course, the unexpected comes free of charge. There are stories of automatic sprinklers and unseasonable rain soaking guests. Hordes of hot-tempered bees, attracted to newly planted flowers in a garden Weiss was using, meant she had to scramble to find a bee handler an hour before the nuptials. But when the unpredictable shows up uninvited, wedding planners remind couples that the three most important words of the day might not be "I love you," but "Let it go."

Kathleen Murray, an editor of the Knot Weddings: Southern California magazine and website TheKnot.com, thinks one bride had the right response when clouds unloaded on her wedding day: "She thought the pitter-patter against the tent made it more beautiful and romantic."

Murray says home weddings are popular now because more couples are paying for the events themselves. "As a result," she says, "they want to make it something personal, and what's more personal than at a family home?"

Tradition can also dictate the location. In Scotland, Pakistan and the Sudan, guests follow the newlyweds to their home to celebrate. When Taraneh Tehrani married Amir Ajar in Palos Verdes Estates in June, they did so at her parents' house in keeping with their Persian custom.

Tehrani, who, like her husband, is a freshly minted medical school graduate, had three months to plan their wedding before the two were to start their residencies.

She flipped through a few bridal magazines but relied mostly on her mother and aunt to organize the day. That meant ordering skewers of beef, chicken and lamb, and almond pastries. They also hired a work crew to chip out ice sculptures, set up tables with ivory and lavender tablecloths weighed down by candelabra, and move couches and tables to make room for guests. "Furniture was stacked in bedrooms, so you couldn't even get into them," Tehrani says.

Everything was in place when the bride and groom arrived at sunset by horse-drawn carriage. They were greeted by 150 family members and friends cheering and taking photographs, and one cousin waving incense to ward off the evil eye and beckon a healthy future.

The couple entered the formal sitting room, where they sat in front of a sofreh, a large spread on which were a mirror that reflected the groom's future wife, candelabra (symbolizing a bright future), honey (a sweet life), coins (prosperity) and almonds (fertility). Female relatives held a small silk scarf over the couple's heads and rubbed two sugar cones together to shower the couple with happiness.

After the ceremony, the party moved to the backyard, with a view of the Pacific Ocean. "The reception would have gone longer, but at 1 a.m., the police came because of complaints about noise," Tehrani says. "So we moved the band inside, cut the amps and some guests stayed until 5 a.m."

The couple are planning a larger reception at a hotel next year, which Tehrani thinks will be easier. "There is more of a traditional feel at home," she said a few days after her wedding, a flower centerpiece still floating in the pool, twinkle lights lingering in trees and ivy unraveling on stair rails. "But it's work. There are a lot of details to coordinate, and we had to make do with the space and configuration of the house. We also missed a lot of what was going on. Friends said, 'Did you know your names were carved into watermelons?' "

For Dominique Niccoli and Andy Messchaert, their June ceremony and reception was the big event they had hoped for, even with the sitcom-like situations that only a wedding at home can provide:

As family and friends squeezed into the Niccoli house in Whittier to help out, the groom was dressing in his soon-to-be in-laws' bedroom, while the bride was having her makeup applied by her cousin in a bathroom. Her brother stood shaving in front of the mirror next to her as the photographer captured the moment.

As guests arrived, the valet had a hard time finding street parking for the cars because there was -- imagine the coincidence -- another wedding taking place at a house down the street. The other wedding didn't have valet service, forcing their guests to forge for parking wherever they could find it, including in front of the Niccoli home. Guests eventually found their way to the right wedding.

Days after the ceremony, the Niccoli house still smelled like spun sugar because leftover wedding cake and Italian waffle cookies covered the kitchen counter. Bags of dinner rolls were flopped on top of boxes in the dining room, and half-full bottles of liquor were stashed in between mementos.

The blessed event was perfect, the couple say, because it was a family affair. The bride's mother, Sandy Niccoli, served as the wedding coordinator. She strategized the comings and goings of delivery trucks and helping hands and organized the ceremony on the front lawn, the cocktail party on the driveway, the dinner in a tented part of the backyard and dancing on the patio.

The bride's sister, Samara Silva, made the three-tiered chocolate and vanilla cake. A cousin sang. Friends -- a probation officer and housecleaner with a knack for flowers -- arranged the pink tiger lilies and red anthuriums Sandy and Dominique bought days before at the Los Angeles Flower District. The groom's mom, Joyce Messchaert, made the pillow for the ring bearer, Dominique's nephew.

Joyce arrived with her husband, Geoff, from their home in Susanville, days before the Saturday wedding and stayed at the Niccoli home, along with the couple and the bride's parents.

"In between all the running around, we had time to visit with them," says Andy, a philosophy teacher who lives in Visalia.

Adds Dominique, a physical therapist: "If Andy's parents had stayed in a hotel, they would have felt like guests at the wedding rather than family."

"This way," joked Sandy, "we could make them work."

Andy originally wanted a small wedding, but Dominique informed him that "you can't marry into an Italian family and get away with small." So they went large -- 280 adults and 36 children -- but casual.

The groom wore a cream-colored Cuban shirt with Velcro sandals; the bride wore her grandmother's silk wedding gown with chunky green flip-flops. Guests, in Hawaiian prints, looked as if they were attending a Jimmy Buffett concert. "The best dressed person at the wedding was the valet because he wore a black jacket," Andy says. "We wanted it to be celebratory but relaxed."

The couple looked at hotels and other facilities, but they didn't want to force guests to drive from the ceremony to the reception. They also thought that there would be a hurried, time-is-money feeling to a rented space and that it would be too routine.

But the best reason to celebrate at the bride's home, Andy learned, was "Dominique's parents love having it here."

In the 28 years the Niccolis have lived in their house, they have hosted four weddings, including one for their other daughter, Samara. Each time, they have purchased wedding insurance for about $200 to cover property damage, food poisoning and weary guests driving home. They have not had to make a claim.

For Samara's wedding, the groom and ushers wore tuxedos and top hats, and there was a sit-down dinner. Dominique's was different. Red pieces from the Barrel of Monkeys game were hooked onto the smooth white frosting of the cake, and a fish pinata dangled at the front door. Yet the house still worked as a fitting backdrop.

For the front yard ceremony, rows of rented white folding chairs were shaded by jacaranda and Chinese elm trees. "We watched where the shade hit at 5 p.m. the day before to know where to place the chairs," Andy says.

The bridal procession began in the foyer of the house to the tune of "What a Wonderful World." The line continued down a brick walkway to the lawn, stopping at a white arch with streaming purple fabric.

Soon the couple were joined by family members and friends, who poured lavender and blue sand into a vase to symbolize the joining of the two families.

The cost for the wedding and reception for hundreds and three pre- and post-ceremony home-cooked meals? $15,000.

"It's possible," Andy says, "as long as you have a park-like yard available. For us, it was nice of Dominique's parents to have spent decades cultivating this house for our wedding."

*

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

I do, but when?

Mindy Weiss, who wrote "The Ultimate Wedding Organizer," suggests this pre-wedding to-do list for home ceremonies:

Tuesday: Last day to have automatic sprinklers on. Hand water to prevent soggy spots. Have a Plan B in case the weather switches gears. Change the sit-down dinner to a buffet if the party moves inside. Assign jobs to friends. Have someone monitoring bathrooms to make sure there are supplies of tissue and that trash cans are emptied. Someone should also watch the gifts. "There will be people you don't know," Weiss warns. Wedding insurance can cover theft or damage to property or guests.

Wednesday: Install dance floor and tent. "This is a noisy process," Weiss says. "Take care of neighbors with a box of chocolate and a note asking for their understanding."

Thursday: Add fabric to dress up the tent. Organza is romantic and sexy; velvet in the winter is warm.

Friday: Install lighting and check it at night to make sure there aren't dark spots, weird shadows or blasts of light. Set up tables, chairs, bars. Arrange table cloths, chair covers, napkins. Cover tent floor with carpet. Sisal has a casual, modern look; a low pile carpet to match the wedding's palette fits a black-tie affair.

Saturday: Position flower arrangements, set tables with menus, seating cards, table numbers. Place runner for the procession. Stock the bars. Install band equipment or sound system. Set up the cake and food. Light candles.

-- Janet Eastman