Director of Design, Bold Catering & Design

STORY: Caroline Cox

You’ll be hard-pressed to find someone who fits the “tastemaker” profile more than Brian Worley. The dapper, Louisiana-born and Texas-bred designer spent more than a decade immersed in L.A.’s splashy event scene, executing soirees that ranged from the Grammys red carpet to star-studded film premieres, with TV stints on E!’s Oscar preshow and TLC’s “Battle of the Wedding Designers” in between. After spending more than a decade honing his skills as a planner and designer, he made the move South in late 2017 to join the team at the Westside-based Bold Catering & Design as the company’s director of design. Through Bold, Worley, who lives in Midtown, is transforming Atlanta’s wedding industry and beyond—one flawlessly fabulous event at a time.

How did you get your start in the events industry?

I moved to L.A. my senior year of college and decided I should try acting. I did that for a while and didn’t like it. I fell into events by working at Banana Republic in Beverly Hills. A guy who was in the events industry came in, and I started working with him. Eventually, though, we dissolved the company because he was stealing money.

Where did you go from there?

The next week, someone from a production company called me looking for a new designer. My first job was to produce and design the first Harry Potter movie premiere in New York. All of a sudden, I was in big leagues. I did a lot of movie premieres: all the Harry Potter films, Big Fish, The Cat in the Hat, Meet the Fockers, Daddy Day Care—the list goes on. I’ve done weddings, all the “American Idol” parties for nine years, the Teen Choice Awards for 10 years, the red carpet for the Emmys. Once you prove you can do it, it just leads to word-of-mouth [jobs].

What’s been a particularly memorable moment in your career?

The job that made me feel like I’d “made it” was producing a premiere actually on Alcatraz for a show called “Alcatraz.” If you can do an event there, you can do one anywhere. I designed everything in L.A., sent the shipping containers to San Francisco, got them craned to a barge, shipped them to the island and then craned off the barge. We opened all the containers, transported them to flatbed trucks and got everything into the kitchen of Alcatraz, all overnight. We were off the island by 6 a.m., back at 4 p.m. and had to set up the entire party, which had around 300 guests.

That sounds hard to top.

Another would be hosting Prince William and Kate Middleton for a polo event in Santa Barbara right after they got married. I designed it, and there was private palace security, 4,500 guests, a VIP lunch, polo horses, cars, all of that.

What are you working on now?

A lot of weddings. I’m currently working on local Atlanta weddings, but I also [have done weddings] at Old Edwards Inn and Spa in Highlands, North Carolina, and at Barnsley Gardens outside of Atlanta. I just did a killer one at The Ritz-Carlton Reynolds, Lake Oconee in Greensboro, Georgia, and I have another one coming up there in November. The bride looked at me like I was crazy for suggesting an entire tent in red carpet and everything else in white, but two weeks later she said, “I’m going to trust you.” It was bold and made a statement, and she was so glad we did it. My goal is to not just be focused on Atlanta, but to also travel and do weddings all over. There’s nothing better than creating an atmosphere for a bride that’s a magical space where I can sit by the door as guests walk in, and they just go, “Wow!” That’s when you know you’ve done your job.