Coffeez with Joe Shalaby - David Tutera on Celebrity Weddings, Bridezillas & Saying Yes to Everything | Coffeez Ep. 311

Episode Date: August 6, 2026

Celebrity event planner David Tutera sits down with Joe. The star of My Fair Wedding built an empire designing events for the biggest names in the world. He gets into how an ugly decor comment launched his career, the J.Lo fragrance party that fell apart on arrival, bridezilla stories, Barbara Walters and Star Jones, pivoting the whole business when the world shut down, and why serving people always comes before the money.New episodes every week. Pour up.

One, two. What's your name? Alyssa. Alyssa. That's right. Wait, say it again. Alyssa. Alyssa.

Okay. And David. Yeah. Well, yes. Okay, perfect. I'm glad that we know. We know. I'm Alyssa, you're David.

Wait, what? Well, you know, go with it, right? Okay, yes. Well, hey, what, David? Okay, Alyssa, come back over here because I need your order. Why? I need your coffee order. What can I catch you?

Did you know that I like, I love coffee? I love coffee. I know you love coffee. This is Coffee's with Joe Shallaby. I know, and I'm excited. I'm so excited to have you. What can I grab for you today? All right.

I will only do it just hot. Hot. Three ice cubes. Don't have cubes. But we got hot. Get back over here, David. Look that. Come on, come.

Seriously? Yes, I'm serious. All right. So, yeah. I do have chocolate. I do. I do coffee. So I love coffee.

Okay, I love that. So give me some ideas. All right, well, we can do the, a medium roast with some four special shots. That's perfect. I would love that. Okay, perfect. I'm gonna grab that for you.

In the meantime, I want you to choose from our assortment of chocolate because it's tradition on coffees with Joel Shallaby that you have a chocolate. These are our finest dark chocolate here. I highly recommend these. But you're welcome to choose whatever you like. So please go ahead and help yourself while I grab your coffee. You okay over there? No, good.

Okay. Oh, so you know what? What? I heard that you're doing a pearl bone. a wedding this year. What? Yeah. Who's yours? Mine. I want white girls white, no, no, no, are you actually engaged? I have a promise ring. Would you have that really settled down and you got your, you're ready for me? Yes. I'll do it for you. Okay. Okay. Okay. No, seriously. Oh my God. Here. Give for me.

Thank you. You're the pet save it. Okay. Thank you so much. Is that mine? This is yours. Come on over. Follow me. I'm going to take you over to Joe. Is it the best? or not hot. What's up, everyone? Welcome to another very special episode of coffees. I'm your host, Joe Shelby. And today, we are sitting down with legendary event producer David Tatar.

You may know him from several different TV shows, David Teterra celebrations, my fair wedding, and many other exclusive celebrity events. You know, all those celebrity events that you see in Us Weekly and all these random magazines, this is the guy that's putting them on. People are spending tens of millions of dollars with him. and doing these extreme events. We're going to dive into it. See what it's like behind the red curtain.

Please welcome the one, the only. David's 10. Thank you. David, I like to start the show off with the same question that I ask every one of my guests. What is your morning routine? Wow. So it gets, it's hard for me to get out of bed,

so I have to really push myself out of bed because I love to sleep. Me too. Who said that? You? David. David. David over here.

Okay. Okay. We'll talk. I like to go out immediately. Go get my coffee. I get three shots of coffee. I go back in a couple hours. And I get more coffee.

And look what's on here, which is even more coffee, which keeps moving, moving, moving, so I love my coffee, and I love my time. What should we on today? Oh, what? I didn't know that. Right there. You're on coffee. right here. So it's like right in line

with your morning routine. Then what? Like, how you stay in great shape? Like, what are you doing and like maintain this, you know, that face? Like, how are you staying, you know, in line with the Joneses there in L.A.? I don't think they're there right now. I don't know. I mean, I don't think. I don't know. I have to think about that for a second.

I just love coffee. Yeah. And I think I'm here for the reason for everybody. Yeah. You know, this show was just calling your name is Divine Intervention. 1,000%. So before all the crazy events, like, what is it that got you into that space?

Like, how did you get into event planning and how did you tap into this world of celebratism? You'll me tell you the real story? Let me know the real story. I typically don't share most of my stories. And I want to know the story, the real dirt, ideally. I started my career at a very young age. I had no clue what I was doing.

It just popped into my space. space. And for me, it took a long time for me to understand how I can push forward. And I didn't know what I was doing. So one day, let me go back for a second. I had a store front in Laramont, New York. And it's a pretty Afro, you know, space. People are there, they're very wealthy. They are looking for wonderful things in that space. Largemont, um, I'm is a very, very expensive place. They've got beautiful windows, beautiful things to see.

And one day, somebody walked into this space that I created. The woman was leaving her space that she rented out. I remembered her very nice. She didn't want to be there anymore, so I took on the lease. And all of a sudden, I decided to create a beautiful window

for people to walk through and see what I was doing. I didn't know what the hell I was doing. That's the funny part about this is is I just started to create ideas and put them in the window. People would walk by, they'd look, quite frankly.

Probably was so ugly because I didn't know what I was doing. But I was trying to figure out a concept of how to get people to see what I like to do. So then one day, this woman, Harriet Bolon, why do I remember her name? That's like decades ago.

She came over. I know, I didn't know any Jewish people in my life. She came over and she said to me, I like what you did in the window. And by the way, the ugliest thing I've ever done in my entire career. Oh, no, I don't believe you. Terrible. I wish I could see. Like it was just like, what the hell?

Why would I have put that together? We don't want that for my wedding. No, no, no. And you're too young to get married. So I started to create this window space. and then this woman, Harriet Golan with Seth, came into my store

and they asked me a question and said, would you like to do my kids bar mitzvah? Now I'm like, what? What's a bar mitzvah? I didn't even know what a bar mitzvah was. You know what a bar mitzv is? Can you spell it?

I think I can. No, I didn't ask you. Oh. MIT. You're all right. Forget it. So, we tried to create this bar mitzvah for this Harriet Golan for Seth, the son, which is going to have

this bar mitzvah. So she created the beginning of my career, literally. She got all of her Jewish clients, all of her Jewish friends, and she brought me into this space, and I began to do all these bar mitzvahs. And it became a big thing for me. And that's how my career starts. And that's how my career started. I had to call me only one person that I knew. Julie Morinstein was my best friend and she told me exactly everything I needed to know about how the Jewish families create these parties. And that just blew up and that was the very, very beginning of my career. So your career started with a really ugly entryway on a window. Yes. Yes. That's pretty crazy.

And it caught the eye of this lady who liked ugly things. Yeah, well. Yes, true. And then from there, she just referred you off of ugly decor. She did. And I wound up going into this whole career with just bar mitzvahs, which is funny because I'm Catholic. So, I could spell Catholic, can you?

Yes. How to spell it? T-H-O-L-I-C. I mean, she must have been Catholic to start, too. most Hispanics are I was Catholic too I was right so from there

you transitioned from because bar mitzes are obviously a luxury party correct and what was the craziest bar mitzvah that you threw? Oh my God I threw so many bar mitzvahs it was insane and I always remembered myself looking at all these children

because they're young and they're trying to figure out how to have a good time and then the parents want to create these big, massive, beautiful bar mitzvahs for females and males, it was pretty wild. And I was getting really saturated with the parents because my name started to come out, and they were liking what I was doing with other families and other kids. And it's just something I had no idea that that would start my career and where I am today. And that's kind of crazy because if you think about,

I always learned this for my dad. He always said, if anybody asks you a question, always say yes. You say no, you've lost the moment. And I've continued my career always that way. Always say yes, even if it's not a good idea. Always say yes. Now let me ask you, has always saying yes got you in trouble sometimes? No, not for me.

Because I've always walked around it and made sure it was easy to be. able to say yes. Now, can you do that? I mean, I'm the yes man in my business. Sadly, it's gotten us in some trouble just because I'm in finance. Right. You know. You denied my loan.

I didn't deny your loan, but you probably got denied somewhere else. I mean, I'm trying to approve everybody. Like you come here, it's like approved until you go through underwriting. And then underwriting denies you. I don't got to say the no. I don't do it. But, uh, I wouldn't trust him. I know him.

For too long. Well, then that says a lot. It's about so. What do you want people to remember you for in your business now? Is it that you made the impossible happen, that you designed some of the most luxurious events in history? Yeah. That you've got some crazy Bridezilla stories, which we're going to dive into.

Oh, Lord. Okay. We're going to get to that point, too. Oh, man. We got some juicy stuff today. But, like, you know, you've made some of the, some of the most. impossible events happen, what would you say is the hardest event you've ever done? I was hired to do an event across the globe, meaning this was the USAA insurance company.

We're celebrating their 100th anniversary. They called me and they said, we want to hire you. We want you to do an epic, epic party across the globe. And that meant across the globe. and he was serious. So we then had to bring in, I think we had about almost a thousand people we had to hire just to get them all in the locations across the globe. And the party for this celebration for USAA was on one day. So imagine that all of that had to be laid out,

all figured out on which lay, which locations that they were at. And we had to make sure that every single thing was being taken care of. And we blew that out so fast and so great and so amazing. And the gentleman that was the CEO was a very difficult client, very, very difficult client. He didn't really like me that much because I think he thought I was trying to do too much and taking over too much responsibility. but after I got into his space and began to start to talk to him,

you know, it's always about making sure you can understand the person that you're going to receive with the answer that they're going to give you back. Sometimes you don't like what you hear, but at the same time, sometimes that could be something that could be the biggest moment that changes the direction. So I learned a lot about listening. My dad always said to me, listen to everything. Even if it's something you don't like what they're saying,

listen to what they're saying to you. And that made me a really successful person that way. I love that. You know, you mentioned your dad a couple times already on the podcast. In the matter of five minutes, it seems like you were really close to him. Yeah. Would you say he was your hero? He is my hero.

But I can't say I thought he was my hero until I got older. And when I got older, I really appreciated him. And he's still alive. Thank God. He's 85. That's awesome. I know. That's awesome. You get to hang out with him much?

No, he lives in New York. I live here, so it's hard. He doesn't like to travel. It's hard for him. But he's very proud of me, which makes me happy. That's awesome. Yeah. So before you started this whole celebrity and had your own TV shows, and you know, you were just a young David Tatero just trying to find his way. What do you think is it that invoked you in your entrepreneurial spirit? I always thought that it was important for people to feel celebrated and feeling seen and understanding that if you make a mistake you can make a mistake but you can sometimes make a bigger mistake which could be the best thing in that in your world. I always lead with making people feel happy and celebrated and being seen and being

heard and I think right now more than ever all of us need to think about that for ourselves. for people that you don't even know, which is helpful for them. If I, you know, if I'm like, it'll align and there's just people waiting to get their drink at, let's say, Starbucks, and everyone's sort of like just not paying attention, I always go up to people. I always tap somebody in the shoulder. If I see some maybe they, they might not feel great today. And I want people to know that they can have a great day. they have to, you know, shove it off. You have brush off the drama.

Talk to yourself in your head. And understand that it could be a better day if you just calm down and try to move forward. You know, I was having this discussion with a very close friend yesterday. And I'm like, you know, any negativity you inflict upon yourself. Like there is no reason for you to have drama or pressure or, you know, pain. or like people look at me and go why can Joe just brush everything off and just smile you know like I went through a divorce like I went through the craziest drama still nobody knew it was like you just seemed so happy all the time like because you don't need the pain you don't need to suffer you don't need to because you get in your own head yeah and you know a lot of our pain is just self-inflicted yes and one thing you know I learned and I had to Hoyan Gracie and he said, you know, Jiu-Jitsu taught, teaches this to you. And I think it's just, you know, just standard biblical traits.

It's like, everything's just going to be okay with or without you, with the drama, without the drama. Everything's still going to be okay. And one of the, you know, we don't need to hire our blood pressure for nothing or whatever it is. You know, like I got friends that look 10 years older than me because of, you know, they just stress themselves. out. Yeah. And I think that the biggest killer for mankind is stress. And sadly, a lot of people just feel pressure so quickly. And it's really unnecessary. You're right. We do tend to inflict it on ourselves. Yeah. We do. We do it so fast. And why? And then it tumbles us. And then we're like, then I forget and go, why am I worrying about this simple thing that is not a big deal? It's really not.

It's not. I mean, we're told this our whole lives, you know, like be anxious for nothing. Like, what's the point? So it's just hard for a lot of people, like, you know, my business partner, he was telling me, he was like, I'm always thinking about the thousand families that work for us. You know, I'm like, everything's going to be okay. Like, you're stressing about them is not going to change how they, you know, like the trajectory of this company, you know, you just, we carry big.

we have big shoulders. We carry a lot on our shoulders, right? And if we feel the pressure of how big the pressure truly is, like these shoulders will collapse. They need just to stand tall, stand firm, you know, and just like brush off whatever drama. And by the way, I'm in finance, and we're in 48 states.

Like, we have every state regulator in our office every month. You know, we got, you know, we're a massive target because we're a big company. So if I tell you the, amount of pressure that we have, it's like people don't understand unless you're in banking how much pressure we get. So I would say we're probably the most hyper-regulated business on the planet. Maybe crypto, you know, crypto.com might be more regulated. I don't know. They're pretty regulated too, but we're along those lines, you know, they're finance. Crypto finance is probably, but probably

in the same boat. But, but, you know, and I don't want to use me as an example, but like I'm always just happy go lucky and that that temperament exudes upon the whole organization and keeps everybody in that mindset and once you even sprinkle a little bit of negativity it it shifts the entire energy it does it shifts the entire energy and people sense it and even though they say they don't sense it they know it's happening you know because they energy is a real thing you know we can we sense each other's energy Do you get, this happens to me, I'm curious because how we work in different spaces, but we're doing somewhat different things. Do you ever get that, maybe everybody gets this, I don't know, I know when something's going to happen because my stomach starts to change, and I feel the acid in my stomach when it's telling me something. And it triggers me, literally.

my stomach knows something's going to happen before I even know it's going to happen. And then I feel it and then I understand it and it helps me. If you don't pay attention to it, you're just going to get lost. Well, we know our stomach, those microbiomes in there are telling us. Brutal. Yeah, they're a real thing. I mean, they have their own brain. Your microbiomes have their own brain.

And, you know, I relate it to more spiritual context. Like, I feel like the spirit's talking to me because it starts in my brain. stomach but it does start in your stomach yeah it does it does and and uh you get that early sense you know there and it's that intuition is always right it's always right i always follow it i don't i don't second guess it i just that's why i'm quick to prounce on on an idea immediately i don't overthink it um my again my business partner's a uh uh like he's a engineer so they Moe ideas over and over and over and the execution is like a very lengthy process. They think about it a second time, the third time, the fourth time. And by the time you get

to the 10th time, you're like, what did we start with? Yeah. Or there's like we're onto a new idea, bro. It's like that that's old school now. Somebody else found it and they did it on somebody else's time. Um, next one. Okay, okay. So there's a, there's a story about your grandparents, how to start your own business, you had to borrow money from your grandparents. Correct. Walk me through that. What was it like asking your grandparents for money

to start your business that you didn't even know would materialize from your grandparents who probably didn't have that much money to begin with? No, my grandfather came from Italy. You know, he came into the United States, and he started a small little company in Rye, New York, and he built it up bigger. and bigger, and I should explain that he basically created a flower shop. A flower shop for

Rye, New York, and he was brilliant. He always shared with me as I was getting into starting my own business. Do not take on too much. Start small, move forward, get comfortable, understand the process of all this, and he helped me for a decent amount of time. And I, I, I, I'm grateful for him. That's my mom's father, and we had a great relationship, and he gave me money to help me start my business. And he showed me, he said, you can't do anything with a business if you don't have any money. So you can't make it up, you have to figure it out. Did you ever pay him back? I did.

That's awesome. I absolutely did. And I've done that with my dad, too. So when I need to borrow money for my father, he always got it back. Although they didn't want it back, I'm sure. You just wanted to do it just to prove, you know, you can make it happen. Yeah, probably. But yeah.

Yeah. What's the best piece of advice you received from either your dad or grandpa? Oh, my dad. My dad always, to this day, he called me on the way here. No joke, seriously. He always would say, always say yes. Always say yes. Once you say no, you've already tarnished it.

always say yes. And I've always done that in my career. If I can't do something, I'll always say yes. And I'll try to figure out how to make it better. And it's always worked for my career, which has been helpful. In your career specifically, it's helpful. But what if like your clients who are ridiculously exaggerated in their spending, right? And they came up with some cockamini idea, and it just wasn't possible. No, not with me. Absolutely. not. If you give me, if somebody says to me that they want something like this that's completely ridiculous,

I, again, going back to my dad, I would say yes. Because if I had said no, then I would have lost the gig. Literally. So always lead with positivity. So this leaves me in my next question. Go ahead. What was the craziest thing you said yes to?

Oh, this is a funny one. May I? Can I? Yeah, go for it. So as I got more successful, this is a very, this is a funny one, guys. I didn't share this with you. This is one that just popped up to my head. So what's that? Let's hear it, David.

All right. So this is when I was in New York City. I lived in New York City for a decent amount of time. And I was at the Russian tea room in New York City. And I was sitting at the bar. and all of a sudden this person sat right next to me. So I'm here. This person sat here.

It was a gentleman. And I looked over and it was Elton John. Right here next to me. I freaked out in my head but didn't show it in my face. What was Elton John drinking anyway? I don't know what he was drinking, but, well, he was drinking. And he was drinking a lot. I shouldn't say that.

Can I say that? Yeah. We won't share with anyone. Okay. John was drinking a lot. Right. So he gets up. We're at the bar.

He gets up and he walks away. And I didn't know where he went. So then I had gone, this is a ridiculous conversation I'm going to talk about. So I had to go to the bathroom. I had to go use the restroom. So I went to the restroom. So I went into the restroom and I'm sitting at the restroom. and then I could see, I was like, what am I, what, oh, I'm like, I'm like, shit.

Elton John's feet are right there, and he's shitting. So I'm like, okay, what do I do? What do I, there's nothing you can do, right? But I'm thinking, I see your red boots, your red show, your shoes, your, your, your, your, your, your coat's red, every, he's all red. So then he comes back out to backward at the bar. And he sits next to me again. So now I'm feeling like very uncomfortable because I know it's who it is. But you can't say, hi, Elton.

It doesn't work that way. Anyway, so long story. What? Did you ask you? No. These are the moments in life where you just don't want to talk about things and then it just happens and then you wind up talking about it like I'm talking about with you. So sometimes the most.

uncomfortable moments become the most funniest moments. And that's what happened. And what happened after that? I talked to him. And what happened? And he had a conversation with me. He was a little tipsy, so I don't know quite frankly what he was saying, but I got a chance to talk to Elton John.

That's pretty cool. Right? That's exciting. Right? Yes. I love that. Yeah. Thank you.

But you never did an event for Elton John. No. What's the coolest event you've done? Like I want to these are the us weekly events. Oh. Be in the midst of the craziest people. Oh my God. Should I even bring this one up?

We won't share. No, so, um, which one was it? Oh, Jesus. The Jennifer. You got a Jennifer Lopez story? Uh-huh. Oh, yeah. Talk about Jennifer Lopez's story.

So she was launching her new fragrance. And it was pink, all pink. Everything was pink. So we had to build a space, very large space, which all, everything was pink. The floor was pink, the room was pink. The designs were all pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink. So she didn't see it until it was the day that it was going to be shown to her. So when she arrived, and we had to get pink, everything. I mean, literally, like peptobisible pink everywhere.

So you do what you do for your clients. because that's our job. That's my job. And that day, when she walked in, she looked at the space. She hated it. She hated it. So if it's all pink, everything's pink. The floor is pink, the wall's pink, the peptalbismol's freaking pink. And I'm thinking like, what am I going to do? Right? What am I going to do? So she looks at me and she goes out because she was with a company that was from Paris that was working with me and she says ready?

I don't like pink she fucking doesn't like pink so that was it we were done it was done and over she left she was pissed she went and we had to do something different What'd you do? I did a different version of it. And it wasn't pink.

What color was it? It was kind of like a beige. Which to me made sense for her because it didn't seem like she understood what we were trying to do. That's a good point because sometimes we don't talk to our other side of the client to really get exactly what they want.

So what's the protocol that you go through to set up an event? If she didn't like pink, like you'd go through like a question. You talked to them? You just talked to the media team? We did the whole thing. We did everything that you just said is exactly what we just did and We went forward with it and they pushed through So now you did your due diligence that before you just let the the creative freedom up to you correct? Correct Correct

Always assume the person that you've hired is the person that you chose because they know what to do and sometimes people don't do that So we always make sure we're following straight through, and we're always asking the questions to our clients over and over. And they'll always say, like, well, why are you asking me this question again? Because I want to know if you still think this is a good idea. Because I don't want to get to the end of this project and you're telling me this is all wrong. So you have to have those communications always.

I'm sure you know that more than I would know, is that you need to make sure you're asking the right questions at the right time. Yeah, I mean, in finance, you have to ask very specific questions. Absolutely. Because they got very specific goals with the money. Right. Now, you built this business, but you started building it before it was a business. At what point did you realize, like, this is going to be a big business? I don't think I was ready for it.

And I think that I was trying to understand it better. But what I had to do was I needed to learn, first of all, going back to the bar mitzvah, is I needed to learn, like, I can't do a bar mitzvah if I don't know a Jewish person. person. So I needed help. So I always, always, always asked for help from somebody. And that always made it very safe for me. And it helped. And it really made it easier for me to be able to get more excited and more, you know, tolerance of how to deal with the clients. Because clients are very difficult. You know that. Yeah. I mean, and they don't change. They don't change. And you can't make them happy. No. You got you just got to basically do everything you possibly can to serve them. And, uh, and, and you

definitely can make them mad, but you can't make them. People, if you look at Yelp, for instance, it's only, it's mostly bad reviews. People review to leave negative comments. Right, right. You know, to get a five star out of them, you got to like incentivize them. But to get a one star, you know, that's just, that's why Yelp exists. So that's just how human nature is. Yeah. We want to be negative first. We don't want to. Why? Why? I don't do that. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not a yelper. And I'm not a negative person. Yeah.

So your yelpers are negative people. You know, your avid yelphers are negative nancies. Yes. But that's just how human nature is. But a lot of people, I would say very high performers are always positive. Because you have to be positive. Yeah. Because if you're negative, you don't have, there's no time for negativity if you're a high performer.

You just have to just keep pressing forward. Keep pressing forward. keep pressing forward. But, you know, that's why most of society aren't, you know, super high performers. You think Elon Musk is negative, sits there and dwells on negativity. No, these people are just like performing at such a high level, like there's no time for negativity. You just got to keep pressing forward, keep producing, keep bringing your very best and trying to get better every day.

Yeah. And then the people who are quintessential and negative nancy's are your Yelpers. That's the example that I'm using because that's just society. these days. And that's what we're, you know, ingrained. That's what's ingrained into our mind is just to be negative, just, you know, for society to hold us back. It's not going to happen. It's not going to work. It's not going to be seen. It's not going to be good. It's not going to be best. It's just, it's like babies complaining. Exactly. If I had a dollar for every time someone said, why are you doing a podcast? Like, why are you doing

social media? Why are you doing this? I wouldn't have done anything. You know, so, but I, I press forward. I keep on going and I have a crazy vision. And I, I, I execute on it. Barbara Walters was one of your first mega celebrity clients. How did that change your career? Major. So being on The View, she always talked about me when we were on the show. And she was actually really nice to me at that point.

There's another point at the other end, which is not so nice. But she taught me a lot. She shared with me how you speak to people that don't speak kind. The joke about that for me is that when she got a little bit cranky on stage, she would get really agitated. So she kind of busted her own bubble. But she was very, very kind to me. She helped me.

She gave me advice about, you know, how to talk to these people, like the tishes and all, you know, all the people that were, you know, in that world in New York City. And it was really wonderful because she was kind of like, I don't want to be. to say she was like trying to be my mom. She wasn't, but she was definitely trying to give me some insight on how to work with these people because these people are very difficult, very difficult. She does have a very motherly instinct in nature, though. Yes. So when you say very difficult, let's dive into that a little bit. Like, what makes a very difficult client for you? Um, and how do you overcome them? I pause. I pause to try to understand

why they're making these decisions and I give myself at least enough space to understand it and then talk to them. Sometimes these clients because they have so much money they'll ask for crazy things to do which I always follow through

but I have to ask the question and ask them what is the point of this and why are you wanting to do this? Because sometimes with people that are looking to do bullshit nonsense that makes no sense, it doesn't work. You have to make sure that you've got an idea that's focused and that can be executed. It's a lot of times that the people that have a lot of

money tend to bring out ideas that are incapable to be done. So I have to bring that up to them and they don't like that. So when you were asked to do the wedding for Star Jones, Yes. That puts you in the national spotlight. Yes, 100%. What was that experience like? I was concerned because I knew too much about Star Jones. What do you mean you knew too much?

She's difficult. Very, very difficult. And she had big, grandire ideas. And most of the things that she had wanted were pretty much not capable. She wanted to be seen by everybody literally in the world. That was really what she wanted. It was only like Diana Ross to me. She did not have that visual of that,

but she wanted to be seen as someone that was beautiful. And think about Star Jones. She's got a different visual of herself, as opposed to another woman that might look somewhat different. And she always did not like how she felt and looked. And she lost a lot of weight over the course of when I knew her. And she lost so much weight. And then when it was time for her to have her wedding, when she was getting married to Al,

she wanted to have a parade in New York City with her and Al going down the streets. Because she thought she was Diana Ross. And I'm not kidding. I'm not kidding. If the things that came out of her mouths today, I would tell you that it was just nuts. She lost her mind. She lost the reality of what was supposed to be done. So she got a little crazy.

Wow. Super crazy. Bridezella. So was she like a bridezella? Beyond a bridezella. Absolutely a bridezella. I'm going to ask you a follow-up question to that. Who would you say is your craziest experience with a celebrity client?

Star Jones. Star Jones. Absolutely. She terrorized me. She was a friend of mine. And I was on the view all the time with her. And she just got to herself and she thought she was Diana Ross. I'm not kidding.

I have a funny question, but it's kind of true. Like, what's the percentage of divorce on all those weddings you've done? You know what? That's a question I don't think anyone's ever asked me. I got to know. I know. That's a good question. I mean, if I had like a book with me, I wish I had like how many of these people are still together?

Or divorced, right? Or together? Is it because they spent all the money on you? What? You're blaming me? I'm being blamed for someone's. Was there an official pastor? I mean, did they get? Oh, I've got a great story with us. Did I give you that thing with the last? Wait, no, I got so you don't know, you don't know how many of them are still together. Like, you don't know like the percentage. You say it's higher than 50% still together?

Oh, yeah. Still together? Yeah, yeah. I mean, they dropped like, what was the most, what do the people spend when they're doing a wedding with you? A couple million? Absolutely, yes. We just got, I just got a new one last week, which will be in Boston at Four Seasons Hotel. It gets the more that they start thinking about what they're doing.

They keep asking for more ideas, which is great for us because, you know, we're, financially making money off this as well. So we want to make sure that they're getting what they want, but I also want to make sure we're doing the right thing for the client. So are you still friends with Star Jones? Who? Star Jones. No longer buddies.

No. I mean, the most difficult client, you lost a friendship over it. That's okay. Now, at what point, at what point did you realize that your David Teterra company wasn't just a business anymore. You started to really build a national brand.

Yes. When did you realize that that was happening? I didn't realize it was happening because everything was happening until someone said to me, do you realize what you're doing right now? Because all of a sudden, my name, David Tutera,

started to get branded on stores. So I had a line at Michaels, I had a line at Target. I mean, I had all these lines. You had a line of, Yeah, products. I didn't know that. Yeah.

So there's David Tatar products? Yes, not now, but at that point, we had a whole line of stuff. What kind of products? You were like a Michael Arum, huh? Almost, yes. So I had all the stuff for the brides, all the stuff for the grooms, all the stuff for the bridesmaids, all of that was. created for them. I think I saw, was that a men's warehouse too?

I was in midway. You're being funny, but it actually was. I think I saw the name there. That's where I saw it. Yeah. When were you out of there? That was probably about four, five years ago. Yeah, yeah.

No, I definitely. I've probably rocked your product. So you got a contract with men's warehouse. Man, David Teterre was a big national brand. Yes. I'd even know that it was like in all the stores. Yes. that's that's really cool yeah it was really it was actually fun too how did you get your own line of product um

we had a licensing license brand company that would take care of all that so they would make the deals and make the deals with the brands and it worked really well and very easily it was great it was a great great time why would you stop that that seems like such a cool business uh when the world shut down when the world shut down then your product shut down Yep. Let's talk about that. So I wanted to mention, you know, you, so you were in distributed retail. Correct.

And then the world shut down. Mm-hmm. And then your business shut down. Correct. So what did you do when everything shut down? And how did you pivot from that? We then brought in, we did events, our own events. So what we did is we went into the, um, I went into the people that were

actually wanting to do what I do for a living, which is a big career, by the way, because it's all over everywhere. And we wound up doing these seminars. So we would do seminars online, and then we would do live in person. And then these people would purchase a ticket, and they would come and learn from David Tudera and others across the globe. So we pivoted beautifully because we still were able to bring the income in and also teaching people at the same time. And that was really successful. So you did live events?

Live events. How did you market live events when people were scared of going to anything live? We did the live events online. Oh, okay. Yeah. Virtual live events. Yeah. Yeah. And you managed to maintain your lifestyle

with that? We still had clients that were trying to get, you know, they wanted to hire us. So we had so many people wanting us to be their planner. How many years were we shut down? Two. No bail out money coming. Didn't get saved.

But what we did and how we did it, we were fine. Because we had people coming to these events that were paying for. So it's almost pretty much an even. That's good. Yeah. I mean, what a great way to pivot. But do you still do those live events? No.

No need for it, huh? No. I mean, David Tatar, you know, the serial entrepreneurs back, you know, doing big events. Yes. Bride Zillas. No more Star Jones? Yes. David, people see the glitz, the glamour, the celebrities, the S Weekly magazines, all the beauty behind these events.

But what don't people see? They don't see the hard work that takes. on. It's very difficult to put these projects on depending on if it's a corporate company or if you're doing it for a personal

birthday party. I even did a divorce party once, but it was. I did. A divorce party? I did. You could do that? Yeah. Oh, man. Well, they asked me to do it. I mean, the client was getting divorced and you said... You know, David, I know you know what I'm but let's throw one.

Okay. Okay. Okay. No, but I mean, they really actually wanted to have it done. Let's throw one more. Shall we just start us? We'll do our own. Yeah. We'll do it together. And we'll invite Star Jones.

No. Absolutely not. I don't know. And Barbara Walters. Wait, go back for a second. So when she wound up done, meaning who we're talking about? With the view. we had to

Star Jones insisted we just went backwards in time just now I'm sorry she insisted on being in a car with the top off and she drove all the way around in New York City

to let everyone know that she was getting married to Al she was out of her mind absolutely out of her mind Christ's sake these women I don't want to do this but like tell me about what is a divorce party like?

I don't know. Actually, I do know. I have a client who's now my very close friend, Sharon, and Sharon got divorced, and she wanted me to do her divorce party. And that was the first time I ever did a divorce party. And quite frankly, actually, it's the only one I only did with her. What did she spent on that? She actually spent a lot of money because her husband.

husband was the CEO of AOL. Oh, wow. So she spent a lot of money. Yeah, what goes into a divorce party? Does she invite a bunch of male strippers? I mean, like, what, what, what, what, what, what, what I, that's what I, that's what I imagined too. There were speeches.

No, there were speeches. There were there. Yes. Speeches, huh? What, what are they talking about? They talked about how pissed they were. Yeah, like, being divorced. Yeah, like this guy that she married, the CEO, billionaire, just, you know, just asshole.

What do they say? I mean, what do they say about them? You just said it perfectly. That's the divorce speech. You just said it. Looking back. Yes. Okay. What do you think the smartest business decision you've ever made was? That's a great question. I think I shared always saying yes. It was very important.

Also making sure that you're listening to the client. And if you think that the client is asking for something that you can't do, you have to explain to the person. that it's not possible. And typically we would push forward and try to find a weight around it. And often we've succeeded. And I love the action of trying to do things that are difficult because to me it's phenomenal

when you figure it out and you realize, holy shit, you can do this. And that's when we stop thinking that we can't do it, then what's the point of doing it? Yeah. And I always push the forward. I always say, we can't do it, but wait a minute. Right?

Give me a moment. And I'm going to come up with an idea or a third or a fourth or a fifth and figure it out. Because none of us want to fail. Do you want to fail? Never. No, I don't want to fail. I don't want to fail for the client either. So you figure it out.

And sometimes it's super easy and sometimes it's absolutely hard to do. But we always push through. I know failure is inevitable, but can you think of a moment where someone gave you a project like that? You said yes, but you failed or you just gave an alternative option? We did recently. It was a gentleman that was in Paris and he was trying to do a surprise birthday party for his boyfriend. And he wanted it to be in Paris. And then he started to ask for more things to be put into the project.

We kept creating the picture of how this would work. And we realized that this is a good moment right now because what we thought he was, he wasn't. So this was someone that trying to get a gig to be able to be on television, and he couldn't do it, and then we figured out he was not the right person. He was trying to get himself seen.

as opposed to being heard. So this guy was a whack job. So we couldn't figure out because he sent us money, and then he sent more money, and then he said he can't do it, and then he confused us, and then we had to go with a lawyer to understand what's going on.

So you have to be careful because you're always sometimes behind the computer, and you're not talking to the same person that you need to talk to, because they're not giving you the information. And emails are, you know, They're useless. You got to get a person on the phone because tonality says a lot.

Yeah. So you just gave you a bunch of BS and written email. Yeah. Yeah, David, television introduced you to millions of people. It did. What was that experience like being nationally recognized on television? And how did television even find you? I don't even remember how these people found me.

I loved every single minute of it all. And it was just one of my wonderful moments in my career. I loved it. I absolutely adored it. And I still would want to go out and do a show and create something that is really interesting. It's fun. And it gives you a lot of energy and a lot of moments to, you know, think within your own heart and your mind and create something that other people can want to, you know, see it and join it.

So let's talk about that show My Fair Wedding. Yes. Hit show. Yes. How did you start that show? I don't even remember. That's like when I was two years old. I have to tell you, it was probably the most memorable moments of my career.

Because we weren't dealing with celebrities. We were dealing with real people. And it was really beautiful because I can remember, and I always have never forgotten this. So you were dealing with regular human beings predominantly mostly women for this project when we're doing... What was the name of the show again? My Fair Wedding.

My Fair Wedding, for God's sakes. It's like nine years old, right? All right. So it was really wonderful because we were dealing with regular women. And it was really wonderful because they didn't have money, they didn't know what they were going to go through

and they were going through sometimes. Some of them were sick, and some of them were divorced, and some of them were going through just bad times. And what we did when we were in the process of this show, I wanted it to be happy and celebrated for these women. And it was always about women for me, always, still to this day for me. And I have two daughters, and it helps me also. And when you're trying to get someone that you can see

right in their face that they're not comfortable. Something's going on in their personal life. I always would swoop in, right? I would swoop in and I would find a way to make that specific person understand how we can make you feel better. More loved, more seen, more kind, more wonderful, more beautiful.

And it worked. And I remember one day there was this woman that came over to me. it was the mother of the bride, not the bride, the mother of the bride. And she was standing right to my right side. And she looked at me, and I watched her, and she was crying. And I didn't know why she was crying. I didn't know she was crying because she didn't want to get married,

or she was uncomfortable with the scenario of her relationships with her family. And I looked at her again, and I looked at her, and I said to her, are you okay? Like are you, are you okay? Are you sad or are you, what's going on? And she looked at me and she had tears coming like right down my face. And the one thing I figured out was she was crying because I was making her happy. And it made me feel like I was just magic. People don't do that. And more people need to do that. Even if you don't know the person's name or you don't even know what they do, make them feel better. And that's what I did on that show. Every single time there was an issue with a woman, I was right by their side. And you opened up the podcast with that. You said, you know, even I just

walk up to a random stranger and if I sense that their energy is off, I walk up to him and try to make them feel better. That's what I do. So give me, yeah, that's what we love you. So give me some illustrations so the audience knows like how can you make people feel better? I was, this is a hard one. I'll try to see if this makes sense. I was in an airport. JFK, I was with my family. And over to my right was, I could see him from here.

And he was an agitated man. And he was, I don't know what part of the world he came from, but he was not a nice person just by looking at him. And then he was trying to get his ticket to get to his destination. So the woman had to come out from the other side of the desk. And she came out. He went to her. And he started screaming at the woman because she was a Mexican.

And screaming and screaming and screaming. and he was, I don't know what background he came from. So she started crying. This woman was probably 60 years old, working at the behind of the counter at JFK. So I went up to her and I said, ma'am, I could see you crying. There's no reason for you to be crying right now.

You're doing a great job. You're doing a great job. Why don't you just go back behind the counter and go find somebody else to help you right now? And she did. And then they came out and I gave her a big hug. I gave her a big hug to calm her down. There's no reason why somebody has to ruin somebody else's life for no fucking reason.

And when I see that happen, I always go right in and I make sure I can help somebody. And I hope a lot of other people, even listening to this right now, could be helpful for other people including yourselves. and we don't see that as much as we need. We definitely don't. No. I mean, people are, we talked about this earlier. People are just inflicting pain upon themselves for no darn reason. And selfish. And being selfish.

So we've got to be good people to other people. It's easy for people listening right now to go, yeah, I'm going to do that. Yeah, I'm going to do that. But will they? Yeah, execute guys. Execute. Does you listen to this podcast right now? Execute on love. It's all about love.

You don't know what people are going through right now. You don't know what they're going through. and it's just easier to be friendly and kind. It really is. It's so easy. So easy. David, what's the funniest behind the scenes story from David to Tara's celebrations?

Oh my God, walking into these rooms with women changing their clothes and me being very uncomfortable and having to have a conversation with them while they're still changing their clothes because they have to get into their outfits. So yes. You had to deal with that probably frequently.

Oh, every day. Yeah, because everybody on the show is a woman. Did you ever get used to it? Well, yeah. I mean, you know. Eventually, no, no. What did you say? Did you ever get used to it, the awkwardness?

It's awkwardness. Yeah, yeah. Well, when they're putting up their, like, stuff on their legs and all that, the bra and all that nonsense shit, I could put the bra on quicker than they could. Now, you've worked with, like, countless celebrities. What's one thing that has really surprised you? about working with celebrities? I think there's just two versions.

There's a version of celebrities that are incredibly kind, caring, honest, real, real. That's the big deal. And then there's the other version, which is people trying to be someone that they're not someone. And you can always, I can always read that

and I can feel it. And I've always understood that that person's faking it. This person's definitely on the right track. And I don't like, like to work with people that are faking, because to me, that just doesn't work. You know, anyone that fakes it clearly doesn't know what they're doing. So you worked with Zendaya on David Teterra's celebrations.

Correct. And what did you do with it? It was a shoe, she was releasing her new shoe line. I didn't even know she had a shoe line. Yeah, she did. And how was working with her? She, she, she, she, um, she, um, she, um, um, um, uh, uh, We speak the truth here, then.

All right. Just be real. Yeah, okay. Zendaya. Talk about Zendaya. Oh, my God, Zendaya. You want me to be real and say the real stuff? Real and wrong.

She's not nice. She's not nice. No. No. What made you not nice? You know that too or you just... No, I've never met her. She looks cute.

I mean, that's all I could... She's very cute. She wasn't very nice to me. Do you remember? Well, there you go. What is it that like Are they arrogant? Erient.

Yeah. Once you get a camera in front of somebody, people go crazy. Yeah, I hate anyone who's arrogant just drives me nuts. I was a story about some time. Yeah. This is a fascinating one. She's not very fascinating, quite frankly, to me.

I just think that she has a big ego and for no reason at all. Her mom is super sweet. Really sweet. And her sister was very sweet. But she was not engaging. I think she felt like this was below herself. Right? I think that's kind of how it felt. Hey, you know, that's raw. We'll put her in the Star Jones category. She's in the Star Jones category.

Now, you've done so much over your career, David. You've done your shows. You've worked with Star Jones. You know, Zendaya. You've had a plethora of nightmare experiences and good experiences. You can put Barbara Walter in there too. Barbara Walters. She was a nice to me. She wasn't nice. But what are you excited about next? What's the next chapter of David Tataro look like? Continuing bringing bigger, unique celebrations to anybody that's interested. So those of you who want to throw a divorce party.

Let's go. No, no, no. Just kidding. Unique celebrations. You're talking about for like, you know, sheiks in Saudi Arabia? I'll go or. I'll go where anybody wants to take me, as long as I know that I'm safe and that I have all the opportunities to bring these spelled celebrations together. Because, you know, I've said this my entire career.

If you can't have a great celebration and you can't have fun and you can't have some wonderful moments and memories for people to enjoy, what's the point? Yeah. Right? I mean, there's so much crap going on right now in our lives that I think it's really important. And I've always said, what I do for a living is for people to feel loved, seen, cared, and know that you can have a wonderful life. You got a dream job. You got a dream job. I mean, it's really a job that serves people in a capacity where they just didn't even know it was possible.

You're right. That is very true. And it's easy for someone like you. to brighten up someone's day. But how can the masses have that same mindset? That's the hard part for them. Yeah. They have to find their way.

They have to find their niche. And find out how to make themselves feel better. Even myself. I'm one of those people. I'm not dismissed. I have a bad day. I don't feel good. What do you do?

Sometimes I don't know. and you have to just figure it out. But don't disappear. Too many people that I've seen that feel like they're just having a hard time, I've called multiple people in the past couple days. Where are they? No one's picking up their phone, which scares the shit out of me. Like, are you okay?

These are dear friends that I don't understand. So I worry about people. We all should worry about people, but we have to worry about ourselves as well. Worrying about people is a sign of love, though. Yeah. If we're showing love, we're going to get love. Yeah. Today you're focused on mentoring the next generation.

Why is that so important to you? We have to move forward. We have to continue caring about everyone. We have to make sure that we take care of the people around us. We take care of ourselves. We can't always just take care of ourselves. We have to take care of everybody else, too. But we need to be kind and caring and loving and kind.

And I've said that since I can probably out of when I was born. So I think I got a lot of that from my mom. And she was a really wonderful human being to bring that up to me. So I think that that's what we need to do. We need to be present. We need to be kind, caring, loving, and there for everybody. All right. You've spent a lifetime caring for other people, loving other people.

Now, I want to understand what matters most to you. You've redefined success, your father now. How has that really changed the trajectory of your business and what's important to you now? My children are very much my focus. They bring me such love and kindness, and they've changed my entire way thinking, which is wonderful. So I have two daughters, one's six, one's 12, and they're

wonderful, caring, loving, kind. And it's changed who I am based upon having these two wonderful daughters. I love them so much, and they have changed everything in my career and my life. Now, you come, you know, you don't, your family is immigrants. You didn't come from like extreme wealth. No. But your kids are growing up in abundance and are growing up in Calabasas with the stars, you know. How are you instilling that same level of grit, that mindset that you have to persevere, to overcome, to, you know, just keep winning into your girls?

Well, it's hard for girls. And I know that. They're princesses. Well, they want a lot of stuff. I mean, they have a different perception of what they want, which is everything. But you have to say no to your children when you think it's the wrong thing. You can't just constantly say yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, because you're going to wind up with a horrible. Contrary to business.

Terrible, yes. You just have to talk to them. You know, if they ask a question and they want to say, Daddy, can I have this? And you say no, and then they get upset, what's the reason for it? So you have to have a conversation about it. You can't just drop it on the ground and go, no. You have to answer them so they can understand. from the next time that they want to ask the same question or a different question,

because they want what they want, but they don't know how that works. So as parents, hopefully great parents, we teach them how to focus and how to understand. Like sometimes maybe that's not a good choice, or maybe daddy is that a better choice, but have those conversations with your children. And I hope that parents are doing that, which I think they are. But if they're not, try to be connected to your children. I do that with my daughter too. She's a very bright, bright little girl, seven years old too.

Oh, nice. Yeah, really close to your daughter. Yeah. At what point did building a meaningful life become more important than building a successful business? I think they go hand in hand. I do. I think they go hand in hand. I don't think you can split that into two.

and I think you need to be focused on both. You absolutely do. You know, because a meaningful life is a successful business to me. True. You know, and for me, and I'm the CEO of my company, like our number one company pillar is to serve, to do God's work, to do everything you possibly can to put the client first and foremost.

Like, that's the, you know, the precipice of our business. That's the reason for our existence. And from there, money follows, from their success follows. Because we put the clients first because that's the meaning of our business. If you could go back to day one of starting your business. Oh, wow. What's one thing you would tell yourself? The same thing I said before, which was basically saying, always say yes.

I love that. Now, you've created so many unforgettable and countless experiences for people. what's the most unforgettable memory of your own life? When my children were born. Mine do. I remember every moment of that. Me too. When you choose to retire,

what do you hope that people remember about David Teterra's legacy? How much I care about everybody, how much I worry about everyone, and making sure that everyone feels safe and happy. I love that. I love that. And you're doing a great job. Thank you.

And your legacy will be remembered. We're going to dive into the close, part of our show where we do a little bit of a game show. Okay. And this game show is called Tatar Knows Best. Oh, I like that. Yeah, you like the name? Yeah.

So it's very simple. I'm going to give you two words. You're going to call it. It's going to be either timeless or tacky. Okay. So here are the questions while playing the game. Question number one. Fireworks at a wedding.

Timeless or tacky? Tacky. Ice sculptures. Tacky. Okay, destination wedding. Timeless. Timeless. Open seating.

Oh, my God, no. Beyond tacky. Beyond tacky. Cash bar. Beyond tacky. Wedding hashtag. Beyond tacky. Dron show.

Tacky. I don't care. Kids at weddings. Tucky. Black tie required. No, that's nice. I like that. That's timeless.

Surprise performances. Timeless. All right. Bonus question. You've planned thousands of weddings. You plan thousands of celebrations. There was one more event that you can plan. What would it be and why?

The weddings of my two daughters. Oh, it's beautiful. There's no explanation needed for that. No. I got the goosebumps. Oh. David, you've been an absolute pleasure to have on the show. God bless you.

I hope your two daughters get married one day and you like their grooms. And they're worthy. Thank you. If people want to connect with you, how can they find you? I need words in front of me. Davidtatera.com. It's just Davidetera.com. Yeah.

And at David Dutera On Instagram