You're the Wedding Planner. Now What Do You Do?

Plus, the disasters.

When the class started in 2005, Daniels taught with wedding planner Carrie Loveless (no, really), and they couldn't find a textbook. So they wrote their own, full of glossy photos of petals and fondant by a sought-after Washington wedding photographer, explanations of traditions in many different cultures, business advice and lots of examples of crises that really happened.

In some cases, the word "crisis" might be a tad overwrought (Omigod! No air conditioning in the limo! Sweaty bride!) Some are funny, if they didn't happen to you, like the time children at an outdoor reception ran past the three-tier wedding cake and knocked it right into the pool. Or the time the priest fell asleep while the quartet was playing and someone had to prod him awake.

Stephen Ball, who grew up working for a family catering business and is one of just two men in the class this semester, has seen it all. Once, while bartending a reception out in the sticks somewhere, he watched a drunk and belligerent guest beat up two groomsmen and wound up taking the guy down in the parking lot. "Most of the guests ended up outside watching me hold this guy down," waiting for police to come, he said.

Sometimes there are actual life-changing disasters. Like the wedding video, viewed by family and friends at the formal brunch the next day, that clearly showed footage of the groom stealing the father of the bride's wallet during the reception.

That wedding was annulled the next day, Daniels said.

Still, it's not organic chemistry in here.

While she teased a girl's hair then smoothed it into a full bun at the nape of the neck, hairstylist Giselle (No need for a last name. Please!) explained that she gets most requests for loose waves, buns and chignons. She recommended extensions and fillers, swaths of real or fake hair, then spun the student around so everyone could see.

"Ohhhhh . . . that's so pretty!" a dozen women gasped.

Students asked lots of questions: Do brides ever just hate the style? What do you do with short hair? How do you time all the styling for an entire wedding party?

"How many people have had updos?" she asked the class, and most raised their hands. "What do you do? Do you bring photos?"

Ball, who's in his first semester at Mason after spending six years in the Army with a shaved head, deadpanned, "I don't. I just feel like, you can be creative with my hair."