Marriages made in hell? Disasters abound on a new show for budding wedding planners
- Novices must arrange weddings under the gaze of three experts in this show
- READ MORE: Where are The Apprentice winners now?
Your wedding day is supposed to be the happiest day of your life.
So imagine the stress of handing control of it over to eight barely competent wedding planners. Then giving them just three days to do it… on a budget of only £10,000.
That’s the gist of BBC2’s Ultimate Wedding Planner, an Apprentice-style competition in which the stakes are higher than a 12-tiered cake.
Over six episodes, eight novices – including a former dancer, a DJ, a hairdresser and a florist – must work together to put on six weddings from start to finish under the fierce gaze of three experts – Dragons’ Den’s Sara Davies, First Dates’ maitre d’ Fred Sirieix and party planner Raj Somaiya.
In each episode one planner risks being sent home by the judges, with the eventual winner landing a bespoke package to launch them in the business.
Eight novices put on six weddings from start to finish under the fierce gaze of three experts – Dragons’ Den’s Sara Davies, First Dates’ maitre d’ Fred Sirieix and party planner Raj Somaiya
‘It’s exciting because there’s real tension,’ says Raj, whose firm Silverfox Events throws lavish parties all over the world.
‘It’s the anxiety of, “Oh my God, are they going to do it?” All these chaotic things are going on behind the scenes. It’s like being on a rollercoaster.’
The series sees six couples, one each week, hand their wedding preparations over to the contestants.
Their wacky themes are part of the show’s attraction, ranging from 1950s Hollywood glamour to Bridgerton via sustainable farming and Concorde.
Having worked in top restaurants, Fred Sirieix understands how to curate a seamless guest experience.
‘Running an event on time is something I’m acutely aware of,’ he says. ‘Sara would say, “Don’t worry, it’ll be OK,” but she doesn’t see the domino effect. Before you know it, you’re running an hour late.’
Sara confirms that she and Fred often failed to see eye to eye. ‘We disagreed on almost everything,’ she says.
‘I think we have a very different eye for things.’ At the rustic farm wedding, for example, Fred said some of the decor looked like it had come from a pound shop. ‘I was like, “You can have an opinion, Fred, but I know the trend in this area,”’ says Sara.
‘But we respected each other – I wouldn’t tell him how to build a champagne flute tower.’
Some of the disasters made their blood boil. At the first wedding, under the wings of Concorde at a conference centre near Manchester Airport, the planners served up warm drinks and Fred saw red.
BBC 2’s Ultimate Wedding Planner is an Apprentice-style competition in which the stakes are higher than a 12-tiered cake
‘You can’t imagine what I was saying,’ he says. ‘Second wedding, same thing – drinks not chilled. I’m like, “What’s going on with you?”’
At one wedding a fireworks display had to be cancelled over safety concerns, and at another chaos ensued after the cost of hiring dividers to cordon off areas was deemed too high.
The biggest disaster, though, was when a crucial bit of transport wasn’t ordered.
The judges then squabbled over who should be eliminated. ‘One planner should have been sent home after the second wedding,’ says Fred.
‘But they stayed and stayed. I don’t know what the others thought that person had that I couldn’t see. In this case, at the end I was proved right.’
Fred had planned to marry his fiancée in 2021 but they cancelled due to Covid. When they reschedule it’s probably fair to say he’ll be looking elsewhere for planners.
- Ultimate Wedding Planner starts on Tuesday at 9pm on BBC2.
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