Guerdy Abraira Has Already Made Career History — and She’s Far from Finished
The RHOM cast member and highly sought-after event planner opened up about her career journey in an exclusive interview with BravoTV.com.
Guerdy Abraira’s professional success as the owner of a luxury event-planning and design company is born out of her passion for the industry, the comprehensive expertise she brings to every client, and most of all, her ability to always go above and beyond. As The Real Housewives of Miami cast member put it herself, “I don’t speak basic. I’m an innovator, not a note-taker.”
That much is evidenced by her extensive portfolio of bold and unique events, many of which have earned praise from the likes of The New York Times and Brides. Guerdy has also racked up dozens of accolades over the years, including being named one of the best wedding planners in the world (!) by both Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar.
The road to success certainly wasn’t a straight one, though. Allow Guerdy — who spoke exclusively with BravoTV.com — to elaborate.
Back to the Beginning
If you would’ve asked a much younger Guerdy what she wanted to be when she grew up, she definitely wouldn’t have said “event planner.”
“After struggling with learning English as a 9-year-old when I first came from Paris, my dream for some reason — because I was learning through TV, mainly — was to be an anchor just like the beautiful ladies on those channels. I used to watch the news all the time,” Guerdy explained of her early career aspirations. “Then, you know, I realized that English was not gonna be my best-spoken language. So then I just started to get creative.”
By the time college rolled around, Guerdy — who attended St. Thomas University in Miami — was presented with an opportunity to channel that creativity: a job in her school’s alumni relations office assisting with fundraising events. “We had galas where we raised a lot of money and so forth, so I started working there, and all of a sudden I realized that all of my skills were aligned with being an event planner,” Guerdy recalled. “I hated asking for money on the fundraising side, but I definitely loved place settings and the decor elements and setting up a room and all that stuff. Timeline management and logistics and all those things that came along with being an expert in the field was something that I naturally was good at.”
“And I was very bossy!” she added with a laugh.
Learning the Ropes
Guerdy knew she was destined to plan social events rather than corporate ones, so to make the transition and learn more about the world of weddings and other large-scale affairs, she went to work as a catering manager at a Miami hotel. The role allowed her to develop an in-depth understanding of both front-of-house and back-of-house operations, and before Guerdy knew it, she was being offered a position with the exclusive and private Fisher Island. Once hired, she’d spend her days planning events for the likes of Oprah Winfrey and Julia Roberts.
Carving Her Own Path and Making History
One job wasn’t enough to satisfy Guerdy’s ambitions, though, so she opened her own events and floral studio on Fisher Island. In doing so, she gave herself the opportunity to design and execute an event’s entire production. “For me, it was a way to really kind of control my whole narrative and make sure that it never diluted itself through multiple vendors,” Guerdy explained. “So I was one of the very, very few planners who actually did her own production. I had my floral designers, my production team, and we literally set up full events for about eight years from A through Z. And we’re talking about super big-scale productions.”
Guerdy’s business wasn’t just impressive, it was historic. “Fisher Island, it’s one of the wealthiest zip codes in the world. And before it was sold to Carl Fisher, it was owned by the first Black millionaire, and his name was D. A. Dorsey.”
“He was the first Black owner of a business on the island,” Guerdy added. “And I actually am the second.”
Not only that, but she was also the first Black woman to own a business on the island.
Going Global
After eight years of owning and operating the studio on Fisher Island, Guerdy was starting to become an in-demand planner in other big cities and various countries. Instead of continuing to do both planning and production, she turned her focus to planning and “carved my market to do more destination weddings,” Guerdy explained. “Now I’m global where we have events all over the world.”
What Makes the Grind Worth It
Today, Guerdy is a globe-trotting event planner managing all things Guerdy Design. Weddings are her specialty, and her favorite part of the process never gets old. “I like to see the couple’s reaction when they walk into the room for the first time, seeing the vision that I’ve been working on for so many months or years,” she said. “The vision and dream, Guerdy-fied. There’s nothing better for me than to have them turn around and say, ‘Oh my god, you literally Guerdy-fied it.”
Making Everything Work
Work-life balance, as Guerdy bluntly put it, “is hard.” She’s been married to her high school sweetheart, Russell, for nearly two decades, and they have two sons together: Liam, 9, and Miles, 15.
“You have to work at it every single day,” Guerdy explained. “I wake up literally knowing I have to balance. So you have to put the phone down at dinnertime, you have to carve out the time to go for a walk in the mornings for an hour with your spouse, and take the kids to school at 6 a.m. even though you don’t want to get up that early — it’s little things like that that you intentionally check off to ensure that you are keeping a balance.”
At the same time, Guerdy explained that she wants her children to understand the importance of her career. “I just want them to be proud of me,” she said, “and to know that I gave it my all.”
Showcasing Her Passion on The Real Housewives of Miami
Guerdy isn’t just balancing her job as an event planner and her role as a wife and mother — she also has to find time to keep up with her RHOM castmates, which is no easy feat. Thankfully, her obligations often intersect. Take the charity event she threw during Season 4, for example. Guerdy was not only able to bring her expertise to the show, but she also found a way to honor her heritage. Born in Haiti, she’s been open about the losses she’s suffered, including the passing of her brother and his daughters in the 2010 earthquake. The tragedy served as inspiration for the RHOM event, and in planning it, Guerdy said she was “really trying to make my family, my country proud, and trying to juggle all these pieces to the puzzle to create a seamless, amazing affair.”
Naturally, she succeeded.
Looking to the Future
When it comes to Guerdy’s career bucket list, there’s still a lot she wants to accomplish. Among the most important is an educational program for up-and-coming planners. As she put it, she can “teach them the ways, like a Jedi.”
Additionally, “I’d love to do a podcast talking about weddings and maybe, you know, taking some callers and [sharing] fun stories about my past planning and also [helping] people with an advice segment,” Guerdy explained. “Then also I want to definitely do a beautiful coffee table book, not only of my work, but also to share my co-planners’ and vendors’ work. The florists I work with are incredible, so I really want to kinda curate that and mesh it with fashion.”
Guerdy added that it’s “important for people to see” all these different elements come together. Why? “Because parties are what make the world go around.”
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