Finding love for $300,000: Behind the scenes of a luxury matchmaking business
MONTECITO, Calif. — Amber Kelleher-Andrews is looking for a husband: preferably attractive, ideally successful and, above all, indisputably rich.
She has just the right woman lined up for him.
"Her face is more beautiful than any woman you've ever seen in your life. It was, like, stunning," Kelleher-Andrews says of her newest client, a 29-year-old from London whom she'd just met for lunch at the Waldorf Astoria Beverly Hills. "She just sits down and says, 'Hello hello, I'm going to finally meet my husband.' And I'm like, 'Yes, we are!'"
They say you can't put a price on love, but the elite matchmaker has put a price on finding it for you: $30,000 to $300,000 a year for her company's services. "I know it sounds like a lot of money," she says, "but it's pocket change to the wealthy."
As co-chief executive of Kelleher International, one of the country's largest matchmaking firms, Kelleher-Andrews, 52, has been pairing off super-rich singles for more than half of her life. The company's clientele is a tabloid's dream lineup of Hollywood entertainers, Silicon Valley founders, professional athletes and coaches, politicians and Wall Street tycoons. The list is of course confidential, though a few recognizable names — Terrell Owens, Cheryl Tiegs, Hoda Kotb and Bode Miller — have copped to being members at one point.
There is no minimum net worth required — being able to pay the membership fee is proof enough — but clients must
