Pulse

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{TELEVISION}

I Do. After These Messages
A new TV show goes behind the scenes of Dallas weddings.  
by Paula Felps

It might sound like a real hoot, a reality TV show that follows wedding coordinators as they work. But take it from Donnie Brown, one of four Dallas coordinators tagged for the Style Network’s new series Whose Wedding Is It Anyway?—orchestrating a stroll down the aisle is a cakewalk compared to making reality come to life.

“It went from being just a show about weddings to being about the people behind the scenes, so they were with us several hours a day for several weeks,” Brown says. “Everything we did had to be done over and over to make sure they got the right shot.”

Try working out with a camera crew overruling the advice of your personal trainer, or spending 30 minutes in the produce department manhandling a particularly interesting piece of fruit. Even making an entrance turned into making a scene.

“Every time I walked through a door, they had to film it several ways,” he says. “It looks so natural on TV, but it’s not. It took us an hour and a half just to go grocery shopping.”

Brown, who is president of June Wedding, a wedding planners association, will see the fruits of his labor on the small screen when Whose Wedding Is It Anyway? begins its 13-episode run December 5. The series, which according to its web site shows “some of the country’s top wedding planners as they juggle the blood, sweat, and tears of their marriage-minded clients,” also features participants from LA and New York. It promises the obligatory bridal breakdowns, but Brown swears they do not happen on his watch.

“There are no meltdowns from my brides,” he says. “Everyone has such a fascination with that, but, really, that’s such a small part of the whole process.”

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{BOOKS}

OH, BABY!

This month brings us Lawrence Schwartz’s book Fat Daddy, Fit Daddy (Taylor Trade). The Dallas software executive wrote the exercise and nutrition book after becoming a father himself—and putting on a few pounds. What caught our eye was the cover photograph. We count 26 babies in one shot, and not one of them is crying. And, no, they didn’t use digital trickery. The publisher liked the picture so much that local photographer Stacy Bratton landed her own deal for a coffee-table book of baby photos.

 Photo: Book: Courtesy of Lawrence Schwartz

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{DINING}

Now That’s Italian
Phil Romano is bringing Il Mulino, the crown jewel of New York dining, to Dallas. 
by Nancy Nichols

Yes, you read that right. The man behind Macaroni Grill has scored a major coup for Dallas diners. Phil Romano (Nick & Sam’s, Eatzi’s, etc.) and his partner Joseph Palladino finally won the hearts of Il Mulino’s owners, Fernando and Gino Masci, who opened the famed New York restaurant 22 years ago in Greenwich Village. The Dallas version is scheduled to open in February in the old Casa Dominguez spot on Cedar Springs Road.

For nonfoodies, imagine if the Yankees moved here. That’s how big this is.

The two brothers were born in Abruzzi, Italy, and kicked around in big-time kitchens in Europe and Canada before landing in New York. Their classic home-style Italian fare was an almost-instant hit, and for the past two decades, the dim, 90-seat dining room has remained one of the hottest tables in town—so much so that they take the phone off the hook every day at noon. “Yes, it makes people very unhappy,” Gino says. “But we can’t spend all day answering the phone.” Customers have been known to come to blows over who gets a table. The Mascis’ lives have been threatened more than once.

So it’s easy to understand why big restaurant bucks have been battling to buy Il Mulino for years. But the brothers have never entertained an offer. How did Romano do it? First, he’s been a regular customer for years. Second, he’s part of the family.

“We are Italians, and we cook from our hearts,” Fernando says. “We chose to partner with Mr. Romano because of his track record, but more important, his Italian heritage and New York birthplace. And we chose Texas because after New Yorkers, Texans are by far our No. 1 customers.”
As of November 1—three months before the scheduled opening—the restaurant was booked through March. On your mark, get set, redial.

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Laura Miller on Ray Nasher

It’s fun having a mayor who was once a journalist because you can reread her greatest hits. Some background: in late 1996 and early 1997, Miller wrote a series of columns for the Dallas Observer about a land deal involving Ray Nasher. She claimed Nasher was working out a quid pro quo deal with the City Council, wherein it would approve the rezoning of some pastureland across from NorthPark in exchange for Nasher’s donating his sculpture collection to the city—which she said he’d never do. That pastureland is now Lincoln Park. The Nasher Sculpture Center opened to worldwide acclaim in October.

“[I]f you were the leaders of an administration that had yet to accomplish anything big … you, too, would slobber all over a short little man and his zoning case, especially when he dangles a $200 million-plus, world-class sculpture collection in front of you as a potential gift to the city he loves.”

“The audacity of Ray Nasher is staggering. It’s downright perverse to whip lowly public servants and a freshly minted mayor into a complete frenzy when the truth is that Nasher has played this game many times before.”

“[N]on-City Hall types are sick to death of doing this slow dance with Nasher. They’ve learned that, after a decade or more of such loose conversations, Nasher isn’t handing over anything to the public anytime soon.”

“Ray Nasher certainly never intended that there be a link between his half-assed offer to donate his $250 million sculpture collection to the city and his more sincere request for a multimillion-dollar zoning change on 39 choice acres on Northwest Highway. Which, through similarly doe-eyed tactics, he fully received. Funny, Nasher hasn’t mentioned the sculpture collection since.”