It was arguably the wedding of the year, which is saying something considering Bennifer and Kravis also tied the knot in 2022. In fact, nepo babies Nicola Peltz and Brooklyn Beckham’s $3.5 million (£2.85m) ceremony might have even overshadowed his famous parents’ 1999 nuptials.
Taking place at the £76m Peltz family home in Palm Beach, Florida, last April, the couple treated ultra-VIP guests — including Desperate Housewives actress Eva Longoria, reality star and fashion designer Nicole Richie, former Manchester United and England footballer Phil Neville and TV chef Gordon Ramsay — to “limitless” bottles of £200 Bollinger champagne. There were also DJ sets from Snoop Dogg and food courtesy of former US president Bill Clinton’s personal chef Thierry Isambert.
However, like all good spectacles, the event was also filled with a strong serving of drama.
First off, reports of a feud between the bride and her mother-in-law Victoria Beckham started circling after Peltz wore a Valentino Haute Couture dress for the big day, rather than one from the British designer’s atelier. Despite Peltz debunking the rumours (“I was going to and I really wanted to, and then a few months down the line, [Victoria] realised that her atelier couldn’t do it, so then I had to pick another dress” she told Vanity Fair), gossip columnists have been drip-feeding titillating titbits from insider sources.
In one rather outrageous scoop, the former Spice Girls member allegedly “stole” Nicola’s first dance song choice, Marc Anthony’s You Sang To Me. "Marc asked Nicola and Brooklyn to pick their favourite song to dedicate to them, and that one was their favourite,” a source explained. "But without any warning and at the request of Victoria, Marc switched it to a mother-son dance using the same song. Most of the guests could tell something off had happened.”
To add to the melodrama, Nelson Peltz, Nicola’s self-made billionaire father, is suing the former wedding planners, Nicole Braghin and Arianna Grijalba, for refusing to return a $159,000 (£129,000) deposit on at the beginning of the month. To which the wedding planners have now counter-sued the “billionaire bully” and the rest of his family for $49,000 for breach of contract and “interference” in a 188-page lawsuit.
For context, Nelson and his wife, former model Claudia Peltz, hired Braghin and Grijalba through their firm Plan Designs Events in March 2022 after their first planner, Preston Bailey (who planned Ivanka Trump’s wedding to Jared Kursher) stepped down. It appears the role was cursed, though, as the two new planners lasted only nine days on the job.
In the lawsuit Nelson’s attorney wrote that the two “had presented them with the opportunity of a lifetime — to have their names associated with the wedding of two world-famous celebrities, which would undoubtedly propel PDE into wedding planning stardom.” Instead, the wedding planners took advantage of the Peltzes by “making material misrepresentations on both their website and in person regarding their experience, expertise, and capability of planning the wedding”.
During their nine-day employment, it was reported that they failed to book a single new wedding vendor, finalise any of the vendors that had previously been selected by the Peltzes, and attend previously scheduled meetings with Peltz. Nelson then asked for his deposit back from Planned Design Events multiple times in the following weeks — but the two wedding planners refused to return it.
Having officially filed the lawsuit in Miami, private texts revealing intimate details of the bust-up have since been made publicly available. In one heated text exchange, Nicola wrote: ‘Lewis Hamilton did NOT RSVP. So explain why his names on the list please. We spoke to him. He can’t come so explain why you said he rsvpd yes.”
To which one of the wedding planners explained: “I need time to do this. I’m going to take a moment to learn the app and send you the information, | hate looking like a fool but | hate the most not giving you what you need ASAP. I will be back soon.”
In the wedding planner’s counter claim they instead painted Nicola as an unreachable bridezilla, who refused to answer calls but would occasionally drop texts into the group chat calling the guest list “a murder scene”, undermining the wedding planner’s ideas as “cringy” and lambasting the flowers for “not being white enough”. Even her husband Brooklyn (who remains largely quiet throughout the messages) doesn’t escape her fury. In one text he writes: “We should do a brooklyn burger. L ke [sic] double or single burger and a nicola burger witch [sic] is no bun and it’s lettuce instead of Bun and meat for the girls.” To which Nicola replies, “I don’t love it” with the vomit emoji.
The counter claim also revealed eye-watering expenses, such as $100,000 on hair and make up for the bride that her mother Claudia tried to keep private. “Claudia mentioned to Braghin that Nelson could not know the cost or he would ‘kill her and be so mad’.” One document read, as well as revealing late night demands for an all-pink after party room and a water dance floor.
For his part, Nelson claimed in the lawsuit that the two wedding planners had a drinking problem. One week before the RSVP exchange, Grijalba allegedly posted in the group chat that she was “going for a tequila before her head exploded,” to which Nicola allegedly replied, “Yes queen!!!!” Both Braghin and Grijalba debunked the claims, saying they worked 17-hour days to try to cater to their clients’ demands, and revealed that Nicola had sent them an effusive text the day before they were fired saying they were, “killing it!”
They also divulged that at one point Nelson almost pulled the plug on the wedding for being a “s*** show”, but Claudia begged him not to in case it would “destroy Nicola’s career”. However it seemed that the whole family unanimously agreed that, “Victoria Beckham could not know about any internal mistakes regarding the ongoing planning of her son’s wedding, including any errors with the guest list’, the court filing states — further adding fuel to the supposed feud between the two families.
In the end, Michelle Rago of Michelle Rago Destinations was drafted in six weeks before the event to ensure it went without a hitch. Due to the tight time frame, Nelson claims he was forced to pay a “substantially higher fee than what the Rago Destinations would have charged under normal circumstances.”
A spokesman for Mr Peltz said last night that the planners’ complaint ‘is replete with inaccuracies and their claims have no merit’.
Watch this space as the story unfolds.
