Premiering in April, Tori Spelling begins a second reality series set to run for eight episodes on Oxygen. This series, Tori & Dean: sTORIbook Weddings spotlights a new couple each week as they prepare for their wedding – with Tori Spelling and her husband Dean McDermott along for the ride to use their party planning skills to give each couple their dream wedding while staying on budget, avoiding mishaps, and keeping the couples' families from taking over.
USTOWNHALL SPEAKS TO TORI SPELLING & DEAN McDERMOTT OF TORI & DEAN: sTORIbook WEDDINGS:
USTH: Can you tell us how the series came to be? Who came up with the concept, and how did things come together?
TORI SPELLING: Kind of out our lifestyle because we love to throw parties and basically love any excuse to throw a party. We've thrown many for our children, and a few friends had asked us to throw their wedding.
Started getting into weddings and then in actuality I said to Dean I wanted to start a party planning business. I wanted to do this as a hobby. And then we partnered with Oxygen and decided to do it on TV for eight lucky couples.
USTH: How did you guys find the eight couples that this series profiles?
TORI SPELLING: Couples would send in videos and we collectively looked through – gosh, hundreds of videos, and that's where we chose our eight couples from.
USTH: What do you think are some of the key ingredients to a successful wedding?
TORI SPELLING: I'm all about the details. I'm a very detailed-oriented person, and personally I think details are the key to every wedding. Weddings sometimes can be beautiful, but cookie cutter. So, I want ours to look anything but that.
USTH: Were there any times when there were any different points of view between you and the brides and if so, how did you resolve things?
TORI SPELLING: Well, I go by the motto that the bride is always right. It's her wedding.
DEAN McDERMOTT: But she's very influential.
TORI SPELLING: Well, I love style and parties and bringing everything together and creating a visually pleasing wedding.
So, I always listen to my brides, and I can just lean them towards – you know, I'll take what their input is and give them the chic version, I think.
USTH: From the brides' and grooms' perspectives, were there any commonalities among the eight couples in things they were concerned about or anxious about as their wedding day approached ?
DEAN McDERMOTT: I think there is a lot of worry that goes on [about whether] things will be delivered on time and [whether] they'll get all the things that they want, the colors they want, the theme they want. I think that's just a given for any couple.
USTH: Among the eight grooms that you were shepherding through the process, were there any commonalities among them?
DEAN McDERMOTT: Well, guys – the commonality with all the grooms was music and food. Those were their key concerns.
USTH: Tori, what did you notice about the eight brides? Were there any commonalities among them and things they would ask you or things they were concerned about?
TORI SPELLING: The thing that I found was that the brides were being influenced by family and friends a lot. And they all were trying to figure out how to have their dreams.
So, if that was a vision of what they wanted for their wedding, but they didn't know quite how to manage their family and their bridesmaids because everyone wanted what they wanted.
That was a very common thing that the families would really want to interfere into the wedding.
USTH: I assume all eight episodes have been filmed already. Do you think if this series is successful that you'd want to continue a second season of this series?
TORI SPELLING: Definitely. I had a great time. It's probably the hardest we've ever worked and you know, it's someone's big day. You can only get one chance at it.
Every wedding was on a budget. Even though they looked like these huge weddings, we had a very tight budget. And a lot of stuff was very do-it-yourself, and we would make everything to save on the budget.
We worked 24 hours a day, but it was great. It was so fulfilling at the end of the day when you married the couples off to see how happy they are, and there is nothing more rewarding.
USTH: Was there anything surprising or unexpected that you encountered in taking these brides on the journey to their wedding days?
TORI SPELLING: I didn't expect how attached I would get to them. I kind of thought, "Okay great, I'm going to be coming in doing their wedding and then moving on to another couple."
But it didn't pan out that way. We would come in, and we would spend so much time with them.
And my big thing is I like to really spend time with them and get to know them so I can personalize things in their wedding that they'd be like, "Oh, I didn't even remember I told you that was my favorite thing, and I would have it there at their wedding. Things like that.
So that's important to me. So I would get really attached so I would get really involved in their lives and friends with all these couples.
So at the end of the day it was hard kind of moving on from them to a new couple.
USTH: Between this series and your other reality series and your busy life in general, how do you balance everything that you do and make it work?
TORI SPELLING: If you're doing all the things you love, then you can make everything work. Because everything kind of falls into the same role.
Everything we do involves stuff together, stuff with families. If it's planning, if it's decorating, if it's parties, weddings, books, it's all about things that we love.
DEAN McDERMOTT: If you need something done, give it to a busy person. And that's how we kind of look at things.
USTH: Do either of you have any acting projects coming up that you want to talk about?
DEAN McDERMOTT: Yes, I did a movie for Christmas. It's sort of the sequel to Trainspotting. It's about personal goals and the changing of drugs – it was heroin in Trainspotting, and this one is ecstasy. It's going to be in the Toronto Film Festival.
USTH: Congratulations on that, and thanks to Tori Spelling and her husband Dean McDermott for speaking with us. Tori & Dean: sTORIbook Weddings premieres Wednesday, April 6 on Oxygen.
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