Bio
Diann Valentine is an American lifestyle designer, author and television personality best known for appearing on the Mark Burnett reality show Wedding Day, in 2009.
She also hosted and executive produced the reality makeover show I Do Over, in which she gives couples a chance to re-do their wedding ceremonies after a disastrous first walk down the aisle, transforming bridal memories plagued by natural disasters, fainting grooms and missing dresses, into fantasy celebrations that will reset their matrimony.
Valentine is the creative force behind the weddings of Usher, Martin Lawrence, Toni Braxton, Kelis, VH1 Basketball Wive's Jennifer Williams, Lela Rochon, and Boyz II Men crooner Shawn Stockman, among others.
Born in Oakland, California to a contractor father and a mother who worked in retail, Valentine credits much of her success to her father.
While attending Oakland's Skyline High School, Valentine was part of the debate team, voted student body president, elected to be her school's rep for the Oakland School District, and asked –for the first time ever – by her cousin to plan her big day.
Honoured by and excited for the opportunity, Valentine got to work. She not only enjoyed the excitement and chaos of planning her cousin's wedding; but found herself really good at it, too. Not wanting to give up on a good thing, Valentine formed her own wedding planning company called Memories, before she even had her high school diploma.
After graduation, Valentine went on to attend college at Cal State Hayward graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration with an emphasis in Marketing.
Throughout college, Valentine continued to prosper with Memories and through word of mouth, was hired by the Bay Area's elite to plan their weddings and events. Some of these weddings included athletes such as NBA star Joe Smith and members of the Fortune 500.
As a brand new college graduate, Valentine was a successful event producer who was far ahead of the wedding planner trend that was to follow years later.
However, Valentine dreamed of a life outside of the Bay Area. Six years after starting her own company, Valentine closed the doors of Memories and packed up her mattress and TV and drove down to Los Angeles to begin a new chapter in her life.
Upon her arrival in Los Angeles, Valentine found a small apartment in West Los Angeles to call home. However, she struggled with being taken seriously as a wedding producer and began putting some feelers out for a seeming eminent "plan B."
While soul searching and struggling to find her niche in this giant new city, Valentine received a call to interview for an assistant position at Warner Home Video. After a year and half, Valentine was promoted to the Director of Worldwide DVD Production for Warner Home Video and managed the launch of the DVD platform in foreign countries including China, Korea, Latin America and Europe.
A friend referred her as a wedding producer to actress Lela Rochon (Any Given Sunday, Waiting To Exhale). At this time Valentine had an awakening and realised that event design was truly her calling.
While still working at Warner Home Video, Valentine designed and executed the wedding of Lela Rochon to director Antoine Fuqua. All aspects of the wedding, from picking linens to the final dance, were covered by InStyle, which solidified Valentine as the expert of wedding design and production.
Suddenly, Valentine's opinion mattered to the vastly growing industry of wedding planning and she was now the "it girl" of the business.
After the Rochon-Fuqua wedding, Valentine left Warner Home Video and her event and wedding production company, D. R. Valentine & Associates, Inc was born. Valentine's dinner parties were featured in Essence Magazine and InStyle and sought-after by some of the biggest names in entertainment.
Since opening doors at D. R. Valentine, Valentine has brought to life weddings for Usher, Toni Braxton, Kelis, Nas, Boyz II Men crooner Shawn Stockman, Chante Moore, Gary Sheffield, LaShawn Daniels, and NBA players Jimmy Jackson, Eric Williams and many more.
After giving wedding and event planning tips on E! News Daily, ABC's InStyle Celebrity Weddings Special Entertainment Tonight, CNN, and HGTV as well as doing spreads in Brides Magazine, InStyle, USA Today and Essence, Valentine published her first book, Weddings Valentine Style.
The coffee table book is a combination of pictorial essays, inspirational messages, and tips from the expert herself on how to achieve the wedding of one's dreams with the use of colours and modern expression while staying true to the traditions the each individual bride holds dear to her heart.
Valentine then hosted Wedding Day, from Mark Burnett, the mastermind behind the runaway hit-series Survivor and The Apprentice. Each episode of Wedding Day which aired for one season on TNT featured Valentine and a team of dream makers, including famed food expert Alan Dunn, making the wedding day dreams of a deserving couple go from fantasy to reality.
The show took the wedding plans of the couple and threw budgets and limitations out the window as they sought good-hearted volunteers and tapped into their creative craniums to really make the big day, truly magical.
More importantly, in addition to giving a dream wedding, Valentine and crew also changed lives by giving the couples a new start on life, whether it was donating a year-supply of food to students of a low-income school where the bride teaches or funding a four-year college tuition to a groom who had to drop out of school to get a job to support his family.
Valentine has added stationery designer to her plethora of design pet projects. Also through a strategic partnership with Wildflower Linens, Valentine released a line of luxury textiles for the interior design community.
Outside of event design, shooting a show, designing wedding invitations, creating textiles and making dreams come true, Valentine loves to travel (especially to Europe) and taking in all types of new arts, architecture and cultures from around the world.
However, in her world, everything revolves around the loves of her life, daughter Riann and husband and best friend, marketing mogul Damon Haley.