Ah, yes. Danica was the only bride I ever met where I loved everything on her table. She’s a tomboy, but a tomboy who crafted really well. She had incredible stuff! She wanted a picnic barbecue, which I thought was kind of crazy for a wedding, but it made sense when I realized that she was actually avoiding anything wedding related–including never even getting a DRESS!

I learned her mom had died of breast cancer five years before, and the loss had truly traumatized her. She felt that whenever she thought “wedding,” she thought she needed her mom, so she wasn’t able to deal with any of the wedding details. And I’ll never forget this: as soon as I came to her home and met her she was so overwhelmed by me just being there because she felt that her mom had sent me to plan her wedding. I felt very responsible, in a good way, but also in a challenging way, to make sure her wedding was what her mom would have wanted. So I asked a lot of questions, like, what was her mom’s favorite color: red–so red was seen everywhere. She even had a second dress she wore for the reception that was red. It’s almost like we brought such presence of her mom to the forefront that Danica truly felt like she was there. So, she did have a picnic barbecue, but she had a picnic barbecue that felt like a wedding. (fun behind-the-scenes note: we even shot it on a Universal Studios set!)

The beauty of it all was that, you’re watching this tomboy try to execute her wedding, and it doesn’t feel right, but when I had her try on a wedding dress, which was the first one she had ever tried–and I say this in the show–it was like the birth of a bride happened. It was magical.

And at the end of the wedding, Danica gave to me a quilt that was sewn by her mom’s sister, her aunt. They gave it to me because her mother would give her quilts and say, put this quilt around you, it was made out of love and it’s like I’m giving you a big hug. So they gave it to me, telling me this, saying how much they appreciated what I did for them.

This was a really, really incredible wedding.