Princess Valerie LLC | Diary of a Retired Catering Manager

Princess Valerie LLC Pasadena · California Vol. MMXXVI · No. 08

The Career Political Events and Bill and Hillary Clinton Twenty pop-up events in seven days at the 2000 Democratic National Convention, a hotel ringed by men in face shields, a sealed service hallway for Hillary Clinton — and, ten years later, a President undone by static cling.The Weddings Kosher Weddings and the Rabbi that made me Cry Twenty-four years old, my first Orthodox kosher wedding, and a rabbi who explained — in front of eight people — exactly why he would not shake my hand. Also: kashering, glatt vs. kosher-style, and why the only thing you can add to a glatt kosher minimum is more booze.The Weddings My History with Weddings Fifteen hundred couples, $125,000 receptions, a surprise Ford Explorer in the valet, and $50,000 of white carpet that existed for eighteen hours. Also: the actual secret, which is boring.

The Column Valerie’s Weddings Eight columns of reader questions and blunt answers — white dresses, dogs at the altar, and who pays for what. The Résumé Forty-Five Years, Eleven Hotels The Biltmore, the Bonaventure, the InterContinental, the Hilton Pasadena — the full record. The Woman Meet Valerie Lehman Catering director, wedding planner, and professional keeper of other people's biggest days.

Weddings · Ballrooms · Banquet Math Est. 1980 princessvalerie.net

A deliberate practice

Forty-five years in the room where it happens.

Valerie Lehman spent her career in hotel catering — writing the menus, holding the floor plans, and standing quietly at the back of the ballroom while somebody's biggest day went exactly as planned. Roughly fifteen hundred weddings, plus the quinceañeras, the mitzvahs, the fundraisers, and one National Democratic Convention.

This is where she writes it all down: the business of it, the absurdity of it, and the part almost nobody teaches — how to ask a good question and then actually listen to the answer.

Meet Valerie

45Years in catering

1,500Weddings (give or take)

$3.2MPeak annual social revenue

01The JournalStories from four decades of ballrooms 02The RésuméThe complete professional record 03ServicesWays to work with Valerie

“That's not upselling. That's telling someone who has to spend the money anyway that they may as well enjoy it.” My History with Weddings

DIARY Of a Retired Catering Manager

Forty-five years in the room where it happens.

A thoughtful note, occasionally.