From the moment Eve Deikel Wendel sat down with wedding planner Susan Gray, she had a grand vision for her $1 million Hawaiian wedding.

The nuptials at the Four Seasons Hotel in Lanai played out like a fairy tale. The weather was perfect during four days and three nights of events that included a luau and hula dancers celebrating the big day for the bride and her groom, Jeff Wendel.

But when the new groom saw the bill, things turned stormy, according to a Hennepin County, Minn., District Court lawsuit filed recently by Gray seeking $21,015 as payment for her services.

Wendel, 60, a high-level executive with Citigroup, deemed the bill “too rich,” the suit says. Among other things, Wendel demanded a credit of 3 cents per mile for the frequent-flier miles Gray received for the two flights the couple paid for her to take to Lanai to plan and attend the wedding.

The unhappy ending was a surprise turn from the notes Deikel Wendel, 42, and Gray exchanged after the wedding. Deikel Wendel, the daughter of former Fingerhut CEO Ted Deikel, thanked Gray for helping make her “dreams and visions come true” and signed, “Love, Eve.”

Deikel Wendel’s lawyer, Sonia Miller-Van Oort, said the two sides have a dispute over terms of Gray’s employment. “We’re not really going to get into it,” Miller-Van Oort said, declining to answer more questions.

According to the suit, Gray wasn’t looking for work when Deikel Wendel pleaded with Gray to help plan her wedding after firing her first wedding planner in May 2006. Gray’s suit says she “expressed reluctance” to take on the event “given the status of the preparations and short amount of time left to organize such an elaborate wedding at such a remote location.”

But Gray relented and agreed to charge her standard rate of $90 per hour plus out-of-pocket expenses, the same basis for which she had planned the May 2006 bat mitzvah for Deikel Wendel’s daughter.

Gray spent three months planning the wedding.

She sent her bill on Sept. 1, including 233-1/3 hours of work and $584.16 in out-of-pocket expenses. Deikel Wendel sent a check for the expenses and a note saying the remainder would be sent shortly.

But on Sept. 26, Gray received a call from Wendel, saying the bill was “too rich.”

Through her lawyer, Jonathan Bye, Gray declined to comment.

source : www.news-tribune.net