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When we say we’re going to take a look at how the other half lives, what we really mean is the one percent.

There is no other ‘half’ – there’s us, the plebs on the ground, and the select few with more money than they know how to spend.

And that’s where elite concierge services come in, designed to do one job.

They’re there to fulfil the wishes of the super-rich, and not all of their wishes are easy to grant.

CNN looked into some of the top concierge services in the world to uncover some of the weirdest requests they’ve had to tackle over the years.

Black Tomato

In Iceland, the company helped design a proposal that involved hiding a diamond ring in an ice cave.

On another trip, a family requested that a Hollywood cinematographer recorded their six-week sailing holiday through the Indonesian islands. The videographer they hired had worked on films like Star Wars and Interstellar.

“The only reason any of these things are possible is that we’ve got a fantastic network of fixers around the world, who know us and the types of experiences we like to provide,” Tom Marchant, co-founder of Black Tomato, tells CNN Travel.

Marchant describes the job as having a “Willy Wonka element” in that it involves a level of creativity beyond anything you could imagine.

Element Lifestyle

A client wanting to propose to his penguin-obsessed girlfriend once requested that the hotel room where he planned on popping the question contain penguins.

“When we learned that [the girlfriend] loved penguins, it sparked an idea. Can we hire an animal wrangler? Can we get the hotel on board? We started making calls and it came together pretty easily,” Element Lifestyle founder Michael Albanese tells CNN Travel.

There were eventually three penguins in total, one of which was grumpy and stood in a corner of the room. The company borrowed them from a nearby zoo.

Albanese, who works with clients who spend roughly $100,000-$200,000 per two-week trip, has also created treasure hunts around Europe for families and friends, complete with a unique theme song written and performed by a well-known recording artist.

Then there was the eight-course dinner organised for another client with celebrity chef Eric Ripert, of the world-renowned Le Bernardin in New York City. Apparently, it took nine months and a truckload of money to convince the chef, because it wasn’t a special occasion.

The wife of the client just liked the chef’s food, and wanted to give it bash.

Red Savannah

Predictably, the super-rich often seek out “experiential journeys of substance and authenticity” over “sanitised” luxury.

You need a bit of a change sometimes.

For a special anniversary, a client requested that Red Savannah purchase an expensive Cartier bracelet for his wife.

“To cause a distraction, we arranged for the couple to have a table by the restaurant’s massive aquarium. We had a scuba diver appear and wave frantically at the client’s wife.”

When he had her attention, he held up a sign telling her to look at her placemat. When she did, she found the Cartier box.

In another instance, a tennis enthusiast requested that the tennis court at the Tuscan villa where he was staying be extended by exactly 40cm, so that there was more space between the side of the court and the net.

You can read about more absurd requests here.

If you take a deep dive into how the wealthy live, these requests start to make sense.

Money really can buy anything.

It can also make you a little odd.

[source:cnn]