She's writing people's papers for them at the last minute.

"Everyone knows" that your wedding is the place to show off your strong social ties. What do you do when the deadline is approaching, and your stomach starts sinking in dread and shame as the people in your Rolodex aren't as numerous or committed as they should be?

What's the point of living in a - painful and expensive - lie?

(besides Glantz's income, obviously)

Based on the article, she provides the services of a sort of on-call talk therapist/emotional support that overlaps with services typically provided by a personal assistant or maid of honor, like keeping the bridesmaids organized and on track. Honestly, I get it. If you don't have a willing volunteer, there's no shame in hiring a personal assistant for the job. Where she really excels is selling it as something fun and chic, not desperate; 'extra bridesmaid to fill out the group' is a lot more palatable than 'hired help'.

There's also a certain caste of society, where spending $5000 to not have any stress about an event, is really not that big a deal. Plus, then you're not dropping it on your "best friend" to handle the whole thing, which ends up being a weird inverse form of punishment for being friends so long.

It's not really a punishment, but more of a reciprocal deal of helping each other have an awesome wedding when the time comes.

Well, the truth is painful, the lie is expensive - while she's pretending to be your friend, everything is ok. And if you actually had a friend who was that beautiful and graceful and dedicated to you, everything would be ok!

Whether the service is pathetic or not depends on how it's used.