The Launch Event for Bryan Rafanelli’s New Book, A Great Party, Was Indeed a Great Party

After 20 years of event production—he masterminded a whopping 22 presidential celebrations for the Obama White House and countless other soirees around the world—Bryan Rafanelli invites us to relive his greatest party moments. Out today from Rizzoli is A Great Party, a photo book that documents his well-orchestrated celebrity nuptials, masquerade galas, and even his own Cape Cod wedding, which he coordinated in just 30 days. There’s also an entire chapter devoted to the White House, plus a foreword by Chelsea Clinton.

Last night some of Rafanelli’s most loyal clients (also, his great friends) gathered at the recently completed SoHo apartment of Alex Schuster (designed by her sister, Jessie Schuster) whose family might be Rafanelli’s most frequent collaborator. “He’s done our birthdays, our anniversaries, and my wedding,” she told the crowd, which included Heba Abedin, Lisa Perry, and Jordan Roth, who stood nearby recording the speech on his phone. “Oh, and about 3,000 political fundraisers for my grandmother.”

While the political world makes up a small sliver of the Rafanelli team’s social calendar, it did dominate the party chatter, with the man of the hour reminiscing on some particularly memorable moments, including one tiff with the head of the National Weather Service in advance of an outdoor luncheon for German chancellor Angela Merkel in the Rose Garden, and in 2017 the announcement of the nationwide legalization of same-sex marriage, which saw the White House awash in rainbow hues. “I worked on that for three weeks with the administration,” Rafanelli recalled to Vogue. “We were working in the total darkness, testing the lights and lighting a random corner of the White House to see if it would work correctly, then we had to wait for the decision. But finally we were able to do it, and I think the result was spectacular.”