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daily lives. "We take all the things we dream about and create a folly and fantasy-- work that ilixir into something wonderful," he says, his eyes alight with possibilities.
Through the company he founded in 1993, Entertainment Design Events, Willms weaves together exquisitely fashioned celebrity weddings, receptions, funerals, entertainment bashes-every kind of gathering you could imagine. His work has been featured in such publications as in Style, Inside Weddings, Bon Appetit, People, and Wedding Dresses Magazine, and his diverse client list ranges from Arco Corporation to Christies International to Saddlerock Ranch to Trisha Campbell. Willms isn’t bogged down by the endless details involved in planning and executing special events-in fact, he loves it. “I thrive on the drama,” he says in his smokey Texas drawl. “I’m the middle man. That’s all I do.”
It’s easy to believe. Willms’ West Hollywood bungalow is filled with beautiful things, artfully arranged. When he smokes, he uses a cigarette holder and antique ashtrays. When he describes the latest bride he is working with as “the centerpiece, the light we all look to,” you know you are in the presence of a true artist.
Though most of the work he does is in the high-end event planning, it wasn’t always so. Willms has been working magic literally since his childhood in Texas. He credits his mother for teaching him the subtle art of social graces, and has been cooking and throwing together parties since before he could drive. Though Willms studied music at Oberlin College in Ohio, playing the bassoon, his education provided him with all the training of an event planner-production, music, lighting, theatrics. After a couple of years working for his father in the medical field. Willms struck out on his own.
At 25, Willms opened Michael’s Lunch Box, his own restaurant and catering service, and served up his signature gourmet creations. But after four years, he gave it all up to relocate to the Golden State, partnering with the well-known Rococo Custom Catering as manager and as catering director at the Huntington Library in San Marino. It was there that he cut his teeth as an event designer, but soon figured out he needed to work for himself. “I just realized that if I was going to do interesting entertaining, I needed to be the artist behind it, the creative director,” he says. Thus, Entertainment Design Events was born.
Though Willms has created many lavish, spectacular, and custom weddings, the one thing he has yet to do is a same-sex wedding. But he would love to, and it seems reasonable to say they will become a big part of his business over the next 10 years, as same-sex marriage rights expand across the nation. He describes a wedding of two men he attended in a Texas Episcopalian church with obvious emotion: “To grow up a feeling hated and a stranger [because I am gay], and then to watch two guys get married in my home church was incredible,” he says. How would coordinating a same-sex wedding be different that those he does now? “Creating comfort, that’s the challenge, for families.” Willms says. “To make it happy tine and the celebration that it really is. To really celebrate the masculinity in two men coming together or femininity [with two women.]”.
| More than anything else, he loves to impart on his clients the tenets of gracious living. According to Willms, the essence of putting together a magnificent event-whether it’s a celebrity wedding with a budget of hundreds of thousands, or a simple dinner gathering at your home-is making your guests feel cared for: “Part what makes you feel special is that someone’s thought enough about you to care about what you need,” Willms says. “When it’s planned out so nice, it’s really sweet. When you feel like someone’s thought of you and wanted you to be comfortable it creates a real sense of warmth.”
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Lighting is everything: A Willms reception in Puebla Mexico |
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Serving Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, Malibu, West LA, Brentwood, Malibu, Hollywood, Simi Valley, Los Angeles and National/International Clientele |
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