Brooklyn Beckham and Nicola Peltz’s wedding planners hit back at $159k lawsuit over alleged ‘mistakes’, claiming the bride text them to say: ‘You’re killing it!’
It was the stellar event that should have been a gleeful career highlight for even the most illustrious luxury-wedding planners.
Yet though the world looked on in delighted fascination when Brooklyn Beckham married Nicola Peltz last year, the whole celebration has been irretrievably soured for two women involved in its planning but who were fired at the 11th hour.
Last week, the bride’s father, billionaire Nelson Peltz, launched a lawsuit demanding his $159,000 (£132,000) deposit back from wedding planners Nicole Braghin and Arianna Grijalba over alleged ‘mistakes’.
But last night, in a world exclusive interview with The Mail on Sunday, the pair blasted back against what they claim is a ‘frivolous’ lawsuit.
Speaking from their homes in Florida, they claimed they worked around the clock to ensure the $3.5 million (£2.9 million) wedding went off flawlessly last April.
Brooklyn Beckham (left) married actress Nicola Peltz (right) in 2022, in Palm Beach, Florida
The women have spent 17 years building up their business, Plan Design Events, and say they have never before had a single complaint filed against them. 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 guys so much for everything you’re doing.’
Nicole, a 42-year-old mother- of-two who was born in Brazil and came to the US aged ten, said: ‘We love what we do and we’re good at it,’ adding that ‘never once in that time’ have they ever felt ‘bullied or disrespected by any of our clients’.
‘My daughter gives the best job description when she says “my mommy makes dreams come true”. If it was Mr Peltz’s mission to damage our reputations, impact our business and hurt our families –then mission accomplished.’
The women were approached by Mr Peltz, 80, and his third wife Claudia, 67, a former model, on February 23 last year.
Wedding planners Nicole Braghin (right) and Arianna Grijalba (left) blasted the $159,000 lawsuit launched by the bride’s father, billionaire Nelson Peltz
Pictured: Text messages sent between party planners behind the scenes of Nicola Peltz’s Palm Beach wedding to Brooklyn Beckham
Nicola, the 28-year-old daughter of billionaire investor Nelson Peltz, went through three different sets of wedding planners, two of whom failed to meet the ‘scale’ of her plans
The Peltzes had grand plans for a three-day wedding extravaganza at the family’s £75 million estate in Palm Beach, Florida. Five hundred guests from around the world were flying in, as groom’s parents David and Victoria Beckham were joined by Eva Longoria, Gordon Ramsay, Serena and Venus Williams and many other celebrity pals. In the lawsuit, Mr Peltz describes his daughter as an international star, saying: ‘Nicola is a world-famous actress who has starred in blockbuster movies and television shows including, among others, 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 icon in the industry who arranged the weddings of Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael Douglas and Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner.
Mr Peltz claims the two women ‘misrepresented’ themselves and proved incapable of pulling off such a complex event.
The lawsuit contains emails in which Nicola tells the planners she is ‘tired of catching’ their mistakes.
Nicole and Arianna are unable to comment on the specifics of the case for legal reasons.
But their lawyer David Rosemberg told the MoS the lawsuit does not paint a full picture: ‘My clients have impeccable reputations within the event-planning industry and among their high-end clientele worldwide. They operate their business with the utmost integrity and discretion.
‘The lawsuit that was filed by Nelson Peltz is frivolous and unimpressive. Relevant and complete emails and text messages that address the misleading statements contained in the complaint will be revealed in discovery 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 a three-day wedding extravaganza
In his lawsuit, Mr Peltz claims the women were out of their depth: ‘During their nine days of negotiations… (they) failed to book a single new wedding vendor, failed to finalise the terms of any agreements with any of the vendors that had previously been selected by Peltz and his family and failed to attend previously scheduled meetings with Peltz.’
Mr Rosemberg said: ‘Nobody has seen all the texts or any of the emails.’
The MoS understands the wedding planners will reveal texts showing their work was being praised. In one text from Nicola Peltz on March 3, she writes: ‘You’re killing it!’ In another, Brooklyn writes: ‘Thank you guys so much for everything 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 ‘getting s*** done’.
The women claim that Mr Peltz phoned Arianna after the women were dismissed.
She says: ‘Two days after we got fired, Nelson called me and he said, “Arianna, are you crying?” And I said, “No, why would I be crying?”
‘And he said “OK, so are you laughing now?” and I said, “No.”
‘Then he stayed quiet and I stayed 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 Mr Peltz says ended up charging him extra because she was hired at such short notice.
Additional reporting: Daniel Bates in New York
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