Ok, let’s pretend that Carl did not sign the contract with the videographer, as reported, and that he didn’t authorize Weiss to sign it. So, a videographer is at the wedding site and filming. Most likely at other weekend events leading up to the wedding as well. Where is Carl thinking all this came from? He never stepped up at various points in this whole wedding process to question things?
Along the vein of it being fun to hash out the hypotheticals, I hypothesize that the wife and daughter did all the meeting and planning with Weiss but Papa Carl controlled the pursestrings and balked after the fact at some of the planning that was done and the related costs. Some of his published complaints seem a little nit-picky to me (the high heel savers for example).
I don’t see signing the contract is overstepping. One could think video taping part of planning/organizing the event. Besides, we don’t know Weiss signed the contract over the objection of Carl or Carl wouldn’t sign it himself but was happy to let someone else sign it and take the fall for it if it comes to that.
I agree, @iglooo. I’m no expert on wedding planning but if I am hiring a wedding planner at this kind of level, do I want to be bothered with every little detail and contract? Isn’t that what you are hiring someone for?
When I have hired a caterer, they took care of hiring staff and party rental stuff, not me. The only contract I signed was with her.
Using the analogy of the home building contractor I used before, I didn’t sign a contract with each subcontractor that worked on my house. The contractor I chose did all that. The whole payment/video release is another thing and will be ironed out with the lawsuit but I don’t think just signing the contract is overstepping.
“I don’t see signing the contract is overstepping. One could think video taping part of planning/organizing the event.”
Sure it was just a piddly 30k or so. What if MW signed a more substantial contract without being authorized to do so? Where would you draw the line?
“Using the analogy of the home building contractor I used before, I didn’t sign a contract with each subcontractor that worked on my house. The contractor I chose did all that. The whole payment/video release is another thing and will be ironed out with the lawsuit but I don’t think just signing the contract is overstepping.”
When you work with a contractor, he gives you a bid that is based on the bids he received from his subcontractors. If the subs overcharge him, he is SOL, not you, unless your contract says that you are responsible for all extra charges. Besides, this analogy is not perfect, because filming creates intellectual property - copyright - and who owns the copyright is usually a pretty important clause in the contract where the person ordering video services wants to preserve privacy and prevent public dissemination of the video or use in ads etc.
Did he actually sue the video guy? I only saw that MW filed a complaint. Do you have a link to that case?
It is possible that the videographer is not completely off the hook either. IMO, it was not reasonable for the videographer to assume that MW was authorized to sign the contract on Carl’s behalf after Carl refused to sign the contract himself. I would have questioned MW and asked to produce documentation showing that she was acting as Carl’s agent.
This whole thing looks like a mess: contracts, agency, intellectual property issues!
Wasn’t it what was said a couple of pages ago? I don’t have a link. My impression from all this is the world of wedding planning is not very structured. They worked without contracts counting on everyone’s good will, it seems.
No, the world of wedding planning IS very structured. Even MW says so in her book (link a few pages ago): draft a good contract!! The only time I assume there is no need for a contract to control the costs is when the sky is the limit… which is what someone apparently thought in this case.
Someone in the thread said that Carl was suing the video co, but there was no link, so let’s treat it as a speculation for now.
“Couple sues production company” means the Carls are suing Mindy Weiss Production Company (the official party in the lawsuit). I have not seen that there has been a counterclaim filed in MW’s lawsuit yet, so I think it is still the other way around - MWPC suing Carl.
In suit one, the Carls are suing the production company for the video. The production company is Vidicam, the company which made the video. Mindy Weiss and her company are not parties to this suit.
In suit two, Mindy Weis’s company is suing Joan and Bernard Carl. The videographer is not a party to this suit.
Did they file the lawsuit in New York since it is where the event was held?
I think Weiss started paying vendors directly because she was afraid that if some element of the wedding was missing it would reflect poorly on her business.
This is from an article from an Australian magazine.–If it’s right then the Carls did not approve Weiss to sign any contracts but just consult and suggest vendors. Which makes sense since other vendors were paid by the Carls.
" (Weiss) is suing the couple for more than U.S. $340,000 in unpaid fees and expenses (staff and travel expenses, lighting, videographer fees, custom-made wedding totes, t-shirts and hangover kits were all paid for by her directly) and U.S. $1.4 million in damages, saying the family are damaging her reputation. She is also holding Alex and Peter’s wedding video and refusing to release the footage until she is paid.
The Carls, however, are claiming Weiss was employed to consult and recommend vendors only and was never approved to enter into contracts on their behalf."
If the reports are correct–that Carls really imagined a 1 million dollar wedding and got almost 3.9 million (according to this article at any rate) then he probably thinks she has done plenty of pocket dipping already and paying to fly people from CA rather than have NY people is on her for poor planning. She took care of the lighting also which explains why he was complaining about it in the lawsuit (personally an unlighted dessert table might be better for me so nobody can see me pig out…).
At any rate I speculate that he probably didn’t sign a contract with the videographer (for tons of good reasons already mentioned) and she didn’t have authorization according to Carl. But he may have paid (or thought he paid the videographer) at some point. There’s a check somewhere…?
The videographer (according to me who knows nada but still has opinions) ain’t off the hook any way, shape, or form. I doubt he can claim with a straight face that Weiss was his client—if she was then he was on private property trespassing. He knows it wasn’t HER wedding. But he showed up to film anyway.
Implied contract with Carls since he didn’t get removed and allowed to continue?
If Carl had already balked at the contract then he didn’t have any business signing one with Weiss. That was either stupid or more likely greedy.
Wondering if he has the video and how many copies–that copyright stuff is interesting. It’s worth a lot of money.
I think his reputation is getting trashed also. Or maybe he didn’t really have one–no clue.
This is all so stupid. She has to give him the video. He paid for it. Without a contract saying you can, if a client owes you $, you can’t just take something else you have of theirs and hold it hostage or to set off the perceived debt.
If they “imagined” a 1M wedding, they could have said so. Since there was no contract, we don’t know. And if MW was only hired to “recommend,” didn’t the Carls notice when she made arrangements, not them?
Fwiw, I think BC is someone I hope never to cross paths with. It’s easy to drum up some sympathy for the poor rich guy who’s just so taken advantage of. Yeah, right. He was a Solomon Brothers guy. I think he’s use to life as he wishes it to be and quick to become outraged.
We don’t know what they said initially. They claim that they said they would prefer her to use NY area vendors. (Not an unreasonable request of someone who claims to operate in NYC.) She used a NYC-based caterer. The florist, who works internationally, was a family friend. (Interestingly, he just opened an LA office. Motive to suggest MW?) The photographer was from LA. (There aren’t fabulous photographers in NYC?) Maybe they gave her a budget, and she skilfully inflated it by suggesting things that would be SO nice without ever mentioning the cost or that they would exceed the budget. Then anyone who says no is the big meanie. It’s not as if it is going to break the family bank. (My money’s on that scenario.)
Interestingly, in the Brides article Alex gives all the credit for salvaging the cocktail hour to the caterer.
Apparently the wedding week on two continents cost about $5million.
I agree with the first sentence in this quote from the Washington Post article. But the remainder about the “low profile” and the “Hollywood aesthetic was just a really poor match”, I keep thinking about the second shindig in France which was not a Mindy Weiss event and the Carls obviously agreeing to the big spread in the bridal magazine. They don’t sound low profile to me.
"In retrospect, it was probably a bad fit from the start. Ms. Weiss, “Party Planner to the Stars,” is best known for extravagant, over-the-top weddings for celebrity clients such as Sofia Vergara, Ellen DeGeneres, Gwen Stefani, the Kardashians and ABC’s “The Bachelor.” The Carls, who have homes in Kalorama, the Hamptons, London and France, move in elite social circles but keep a relatively low profile. They are horrified that the private family celebration and subsequent lawsuit, first reported in London’s Daily Mail, have become tabloid fodder.
“It is clear to me that we didn’t do our homework on Mindy, that her very Hollywood aesthetic was just a really poor match with our objectives and image for this event,” says Mr. Carl during an interview in the library of his Kalorama home. “And we didn’t sense that early enough. That was our mistake.”"
There’s low profile, and there’s low profile. A tasteful spread in Brides as a low-key boost for the family business and the bride’s acting career, perhaps, vs selling photos to People or US and circling helicopters full of paparazzi, all for clients who LIVE on their publicity, like the Kardashians? (Ellen DeGeneres strikes me as the only one who might be the exception. I met her mother once, and she was a very nice lady.)