5Qs on Friday: David Tutera

David Tutera Pretties Up My Fair Wedding
TVFirstLook

David Tutera is a wedding planner extraordinaire. His weddings have been featured in magazines like Modern Bride and he's a frequent speaker on the wedding show circuit. In 2009, David made TV news when he was a guest on Donald Trump's The Apprentice and walked off the show.

These days, David is best known for WE tv's My Fair Wedding with David Tutera, a fantastically fun show that kicks off its sixth season one week from Saturday (September 8) at 9m. On the show, David rescues a bride and groom from their, well, misguided wedding plans. He turns their wedding into a beautiful event that captures the couple's style without getting gimmicky.

This season, the show has been tweaked as My Fair Wedding Unveiled with David Tutera where David is joined by his staff, and challenged by a bride and, more than in past seasons, the groom and their families to create a gorgeous wedding.

David spoke with TVFirstLook about Unveiled, the David Tutera style and making himself laugh.

TVFirstLook: David, My Fair Wedding is such a fun, well-made and totally addictive show. How did it first come together?

David Tutera: My Fair Wedding came together when the WE tv network came to me to create weddings for girls who had tragic concepts and had no guidance. That was where I stepped in three weeks before the wedding to take their ideas and turn them into beautiful, stunning weddings.

TVFirstLook: Your weddings and receptions on the show are bold, bright, showy and gorgeous. How do you describe your style?

David: My style is that I have no style. My style is my bride's style.

My job is to take what they want, wish for and dream of and make it come true. The biggest compliment that anyone can pay me when they go to a wedding I've executed is saying, "Who did this wedding?" as opposed to saying, "This is a David Tutera wedding." I never want any of my bride's weddings to look like the last one I did.

TVFirstLook: The show's format is getting tweaked this season. What changes can MFW fans expect?

David: This season has changes from top to bottom. You won't even recognize anything about this season compared to the last five seasons. Every episode has a completely different feeling and style. There is no format.

The show in the past had the format of trying on three dresses and  me picking one of the three for the wedding.

This season is literally about the reality of what it takes to put a wedding together. From the beginning to the middle to the end, I'm never quite sure what's going to happen. That makes the ride that much more bumpy, but that much more worth taking.

TVFirstLook: On Unveiled, we see behind-the-scenes glimpses of all the people and moving parts that go into planning a wedding. It looks incredibly complex. How do you keep everything organized and moving along?

David: You stay focused and you have a great team of experts that surround you.

The reason why I do such a great job with my brides' weddings is because of my passion and my heart for making sure I provide something unique. But, saying that  doesn't mean it goes smoothly.

Today, for example, I changed the complete color scheme of a wedding when I thought I knew exactly what the bride wanted. But, it turned out, it wasn't what she wanted at all.

So, you have to listen and learn from your bride, your groom and their family members. You have to find a way to execute what they want. If that means changing things a couple of days before the wedding, then you have to change it. You figure out how you're going to make it happen.

TVFirstLook: OK, last thing, the best part of MFW, I think, is your humor (as well as the joy you feel when your bride and groom are happy). What makes you laugh? What makes you cry?

David: What makes me laugh is myself. I don't take myself too seriously. What makes me cry is when I see people's joy in response to something they never thought they could have that I was able to make happen.