After much talk about Nicola Peltz Beckham‘s wedding to Brooklyn Beckham last April — including why Victoria Beckham didn’t design her daughter-in-law’s dress — news about the nuptials are back in headlines.
There’s currently a legal battle brewing between Nicola, her billionaire father Nelson Peltz and the second of three wedding planners enlisted to pull off the lavish wedding. Nelson Peltz sued Nicole Braghin and Arianna Grijalba and their company Plan Design Events (PDE) in December for allegedly mismanaging preparation for the wedding and refusing to refund his deposit after he fired them after eight days on the job. In the filing, the Peltzes accused Braghin and Grijalba of providing “no service of value.”
This week, the family is speaking out against the ex-wedding planners for reportedly being “malicious and mean-spirited” in a new legal filing. The Peltz family described the planners as “desperate” and attempting “a good old fashion shake down” in Miami court documents filed on Thursday, which were obtained by the Daily Mail.
The famous family attached an invoice from the planners which details 10 “18-hour” days, plus expenses, sky-rocketing the bill to $181,000 on top of the $159,000 deposit.
Braghin and Grijalba responded with a 188-page counterclaim in February against Nelson, his wife Claudia, and Nicola, referring to the businessman as a “bully billionaire.” The women included details of the event plans, including a six-figure hair and makeup bill, and releasing hundreds of text messages of Nicola criticizing suggestions and firing off a list of requests.
Now, the Peltz’s attorneys have entered a request to remove Nicola and her mother Claudia from the case, citing that they “undisputedly are not parties” to the employment contract.
The attorney for the Peltz family Michael Kreitzer explained that releasing the text messages was “a desperate effort to distract from their own failure to accomplish anything of substance in the short time they purported to act as replacement wedding planners.” Kreitzer deemed the inclusion of Nicola and Claudia as defendants in the lawsuit as “salacious, meritless and legally deficient,” and described the act to be “a good old fashion shake-down.”
In the group text with her planners, Nicola insisted that her band wear “plan chic tuxes” and said that the music should be “early 2000s hip-hop,” rejecting any suggestions of something more traditional. Requesting a “water aisle and matching water dance floor,” the Welcome to Chippendales actress also demanded that staff hired by the previous planners be “cut off” saying, “I hate them” and “can we fire them yet.”
In one exchange, the star slammed her planners for making an error in the guest list. “Lewis Hamilton did NOT RSVP. So explain why his names on the list please. We spoke to him. He can’t come so explain why you said he rsvpd yes.” She continued later, “I’m tired of catching mistakes on this rsvp list honestly. When will I get a straight answer on this.”
In other messages submitted, Brooklyn referred to the planning as “a mess” while Nicola chimed in, “more like a MURDER SCENE.”
The planners allege that Nelson wished to “cancel the wedding” at one point, but his wife “begged” him not to, as it would be sure to “destroy Nicola’s career.”
Nelson hired Plan Design Events on March 1, after parting ways with their first wedding planner Preston Bailey just six weeks before the event.
The family lawyer responded that “the 127 pages of text messages that PDE improperly attached to the third-party complaint demonstrate that Nicola was gracious and patient in her interactions with the wedding planners that her father purportedly hired.”
The wedding took place on April 9, 2022 at Peltz’s family estate in Palm Beach, Florida. Guests included Eva Longoria, Venus and Serena Williams, Rashida Jones, Gordon Ramsay, directors M Night Shyamalan and Michael Bay, and two former members of the Spice Girls, Mel B and Melanie C.
Stay tuned for updates as the legal drama ensues.
