A Hollywood Party Planner Who Isn’t Instagram-Obsessed

LOS ANGELES — As the evening sky faded to bluish white, Yifat Oren, 45, surveyed her handiwork. “Don’t light the candles just yet,” the event producer said to one of her assistants. “We need to wait for the wind to die down.” Another assistant was sent to fetch the seating chart for a quick rearrangement.

In only half an hour 50 or so guests, including the Los Angeles restaurateur Jon Shook and his wife, the “UnREAL” actress Shiri Appleby; a founder of Baby2Baby, Norah Weinstein; the celebrity interior designer Molly Isaksen; and the actress Natasha Gregson Wagner, would arrive for a backyard soiree held in the Hancock Park neighborhood. The party was being given by Ms. Oren in conjunction with two close friends, the jewelry designer Lena Wald and an owner of Andy Lecompte salon, Leanne Citrone, who offered up her TudFor Ms. Oren, a party is never fully planned; she makes tweaks and changes until the lights go up and the band stops playing. “She sweats the details like there’s no tomorrow,” said Jeffrey Katzenberg, the former longtime chief executive of DreamWorks Animation who started WndrCo, a new Hollywood venture. Mr. Katzenberg hired Ms. Oren to plan both of his children’s weddings. “I love how unflappable she was,” he said in an email, adding, “Given the circumstances and the customers, that’s pretty herculean.” At the wedding last summer in Florence, Italy, of David and Stellina Katzenberg, guests like Nicole Richie sat at banquette tablesadorned with pink and purple flowers, beneath a canopy of lights.
Ms. Oren is one in an elite class of event planners based in Los Angeles whose services are commissioned by the rich and famous. Unlike some of her contemporaries, though, she hasn’t courted much press attention and doesn’t often promote her work on social media. In an era in which the number of double-taps a business garners on Instagram is a measure of its success, she is somewhat blasé about it all. Her business, Oren Co., has just over 4,000 Instagram followers — significantly fewer than other event planners like Sharon Sacks (more than 27,000 followers) or Mindy Weiss (over 179,000), who were behind the nuptials of Kim Kardashian to Kanye West and Ellen DeGeneres to Portia de Rossi, respectively. Ms. Oren’s inconspicuousness has positioned her as an ally for clients who don’t want coverage of their parties, such as Cameron Diaz and Jennifer Aniston.or-style abode for the occasion.