Meet MR. HOSPITALITY

We love spreading the word about amazing wedding vendors in our area! Meet MR HOSPITALITY, a wedding planner and one of our partners! Check out our interview with owner, Mario Rivera, below.

1. Why did you decide to go into wedding planning?

Weddings have the influence to touch people’s lives and change them. Believe me, I know.

I have been working events since the summer I turned 16, and I have been a part of hundreds of weddings since then. Many of them were at the most exotic and scenic locations I had ever seen at that time. Still, the most nostalgic moments of every wedding I can remember witnessing were the minutes just before a bride took her first steps down the aisle. Even at an early age, I realized how important the day was not just for the bride and groom but also for the families and friends attending. Being a part of these delicate moments has always stuck with me, so I guess in retrospect you can say that weddings chose me simply by the relationship we’ve developed over the years.

To me, weddings are truly one of life’s most memorable and impactful experiences anyone can have. My role in planning my client’s weddings is in guiding, staging and creating the memories they most deeply desire. It is a very rewarding feeling, being a part of such a special moment in a couple’s life as they become the authors of their own personal story as a family from that day forth.

2. What is your favorite aspect of planning a wedding?

My favorite aspect of planning weddings has to be the journey of learning about my clients. I mean it’s no secret that New York City is a growing melting pot of cultures so naturally we are seeing more and more couples fusing traditions, cuisines and designs – all the while building creating a collective personality as a couple. At MR hospitality, we absolutely LOVE the challenge of coming up with creative and unique ways to do just that. Some of the most thoughtful and inspired wedding ideas we come up with come naturally as we learn more about our clients and who they are as a couple and what they value most.

3. What do you do to understand a couple’s vision and bring it to life?

Listen. 

I know it sounds really simple and it is, but it’s also one of the most effective ways of learning about our couples while creating positive energy in the client and planner relationship. By paying close attention to how a bride and groom describe their respective vision, we learn a great deal about how they respond to each other’s ideas and eventually our ideas as well. Certain brides are detailed and descriptive while others respond better to visuals. Knowing how to communicate effectively makes our client’s vision understandable and that it essential to our planning process.

Define.

Another easily overlooked practice in the wedding industry. We live in an extremely visual era where technology and information is at our fingertips (literally). So we use it to our advantage when discussing aesthetic options for their wedding. Social media applications like Pinterest have allowed us to collaborate with clients and agree on what shade of grey to use for stationery and believe me there are more than 50 options (LOL). Point is, rustic and chic can mean something very different to each couple and our job is to define and deliver the vision our clients’ desire, plain and simple.

4. What advice do you have for couples in the initial stages of wedding planning?

My advice for couples that are just starting out would be to prioritize what is most important to the both of you, along with writing up a first draft of your guest list. I assure you once you have a better idea of what you are looking at (150 guests vs. 300), you will be better prepared to plan and discuss what wedding style you can achieve. Not to mention this will also help guide your decisions when discussing a wedding budget. Additionally, by prioritizing what is most important to you (guest experience, design, food, tradition, entertainment, etc.), planners can better propose ideas that are concentrated around the areas of your wedding that matter most to the both of you.

5. What’s the number one reason why you suggest couples hire a planner?

As I mentioned before, prioritizing is incredibly important when planning your special day. Weddings are complicated event productions that not only call for extremely detailed organization, but also include multiple vendors, quotes, meetings, contracts and countless hours of research and phone calls.  As wedding consultants, our job is to provide you with guidance in making smarter and better decisions based on our knowledge and experience along with your budget and wedding aspirations. So unless you plan on making a buck planning weddings after orchestrating your own, let us work our magic so you can enjoy being happily engaged before happily ever after.

MR HOSPITALITY designed Camille and Jonathan’s wedding, which was featured on Style Me Pretty and in the New York Times! Check out the couple’s Save the Date film below.

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