Peregrine Armstrong-Jones
Fresh from planning the much publicised Royal wedding between the Queen's eldest grandson and Autumn Kelly, Peregrine Armstrong-Jones is the party planner to the stars.
The man behind the Beckham's wedding and Elton John's annual White Tie and Tiara parties, tells us how to be the perfect summer party host and the secrets of what makes a great party.
Peregrine how did you get into party organising?
Well there isn't actually a direct route into party organising as you know because there isn't a university of party organizers or an academy of party organisers so you have to decide first what you want to do. I didn't really know what I wanted to do because I was studying agriculture at the time so I got into it really by mistake
For those that are interested in getting into party organising what advice would you give?My advice would be depending at what level you want to go to. If you want to end up organising something on a huge grand scale then your first stop really should be drama school. That will teach you about stage sets, lighting sideliners all the things that you probably can't learn by trial and error and if you do learn by trial and error you'll probably make a lot of errors.
And continuing on that vein would you say that with the best parties the more theatrical the better?Well the ones that have the most impact are the ones that include theatrical effects because lets face it if you walk into a restaurant that is well light and beautifully decorated then you tend to take more notice of something that’s dramatic than something that’s plain looking.
What would you say is the best party that you've organised?The one that I'm most proud of is the White Tie and Tiara ball that I organised this year or at least I was part of the organisation for it, I couldn't organise that on my own. It was the main funder for the Elton John Aids Foundation. We raised £10.3 million for charity so we were all very proud of that and proud to be associated with.
Fantastic. I'm sure you must have some very elaborate requests for your parties, what would be the most elaborate?The most elaborate requests generally appear when we're working abroad and it's clearly more difficult to facilitate things if you're working in India or the Caribbean but generally speaking they tend to pop out of nowhere.
And what would some of the more outlandish requests be? Any examples?They normally involve large outdoor spaces where were asked for outlandish entertainment on a grand scale. At the moment as you know the Cirque De Soleil entertainment is very fashionable and there are no limits to people’s requirements for that kind of stadium entertainment. So it’s generally circus based I guess.
We know that you've been involved with many high profile clients over the years who have you most enjoyed working with?
I think probably there's no specific celebrity that I can say I enjoyed working with the most it is always an honour to work with all of them and in facta lot of people I've worked with who aren't in the public eye I've enjoyed working with too. Whether I organise a wedding for someone who's in the publiceye or not I give it the same dedication.
One of the things that the readers of female first were also interested in was if you were able to organise a party for anyone dead or alive who would it be and what would you do for them?
I used to think that I wanted to organise a party for President Gaddafi because I love the thought of going out to Libya and working out there and I think he's still probably on my hit list but I think he's been overtaken a little bit by people in the Russian areas of the world. I'd be interested in organising a party for President Putin if the opportunity ever arose.
Well he might be listening! What would your advice be to someone who would like to organise the perfect party? Where could they go for more advice?
We've got loads of tips that we've come up with to make organising your own party a lot easier than it seems on the surface. If you check out the website dolmio.co.uk then you'll find a number of tips that will make organising your party a very easy and stress free experience. We've got tips on food, in fact the way that Dolmio have conducted their research is that we found that its very enjoyable to come up with lots of different solutions in fact involving Dolmio sauces and other wonderful ways of creating experiences for summer party get togethers that make the journey through the organisation a lot more satisfying than it could be.