Big Rhody Wedding Weekend!

I just got back from two big weddings in the Rhode Island area this weekend. 

The first was for Caroline and Tim in Westport, Massachusetts on their family compound.

Someday I would like to have a compound. As long as there are no spiders. This compound had spiders. Not into it!

There were NINE flower girls in their wedding party. It was crazy.

The older ones took direction REALLY well. I love them so much. 

The 250-person reception took place under a GIANT tent. 

Random factoid: The bride Caroline's brother used to date Shiri in high school. Small world!

And two of my favorite parents, Mr. and Mrs. Fay, were there! (Mrs. Fay referred me the wedding, since I've shot both Molly's Wedding, Katie's Wedding, AND cousin Sheila's wedding.)

Since retiring from running golf for the United States of America, Mr. Fay has been writing a monthly column for Golf Digest.

You can check out his writings here: http://www.golfdigest.com/contributors/david-fay

I don't even like golf. But I love reading his articles because I love him so much. 

-------------------

The next day, Sunday, I had a wedding down in Newport.

Beautiful bride Nicole went to Brown with me. She's a year younger so I didn't really know her back then... but I'm so thankful for my network of fabulous smartyrich people who can afford to hire me for weddings!

The wedding actually took place at Belle Mer, which is a gorgeous venue inside... but outside leaves a little bit to be desired, especially in Newport where there are so many beautiful mansions.

So we rented a giant bus to take the enormous wedding party (12 bridesmaids I think and 9 or so groomboys) around town. We trespassed at the various mansions until we got kicked out or yelled at by someone (which happened a few times lol).

It was kind of awesome.

The reception set up was quite pretty! Lots and lots o' candles. 

And the dance party was super fun!

Also present was Grace, who is a good friend of the bride's mom. (And my mom's too!)

I met Grace almost 8 years ago when she and my mom had just become besties. (She also lives in Barrington, where I grew up.)

It wasn't until a couple years ago when I started getting more involved in the "wedding industry" that I realized Grace was GRACE ORMONDE, the owner and editor of Grace Ormonde Wedding Style Magazine. She's basically the Anna Wintour of weddings (without all the scariness and awfulness.)

It was so nice to see her and I think this wedding will be getting a feature if the pictures are good enough!

Oh...also, bride Nicole happens to be a marketing director or something at LVMH...so we were literally popping bottles of Dom and Moey Shandon ALL DAY LONG.

LOVES an ALL-DOM PARTY!!!

Congratulations to all my beautiful couples!!!

OK I gots to get lots of stuff done now before heading to Tahoe on Thursday and then France, Italy and London!

Brown 10-Year Reunion!

I went up to Brown this past weekend for my 10-Year Reunion at Brown.

Crazy how much has happened in 10 years. And crazier that it's almost all chronicled right here on this blog...

10 years...I'm sure none of us could have predicted where we are today. Happy to have met so many amazing people over the years. And thrilled that my job and life allows me to still see so many of them to this day!

In fact, there were very few people at reunion that I hadn't seen in a long time. I was just excited to see SO MANY of my favorites all in one place at one time!

We arrived in Providence and I met up with Katie and Semmesey and Stella at Paragon for some old school favorites.

Walter and Kate joined us too! (So excited to shoot their wedding in October!)

Then we went and got ready for Campus Dance...

Before Campus Dance there was a Class of 2004 Kickoff Party...

Some lame-o photographer was there taking our class picture.

Saw LOTS and LOTS of past and future DK Brides!!!

And non-DK brides. (Hmmph!)

The place was packed! Lots of awkward catch-up conversations that I had to run away from.

And some of our class "celebrities"!

TomLipinski, who has had roles on "Suits" and "The Following" and who will be recurring in the upcoming "The Knick"...and of course MaxJoseph, star and co-creator of "Catfish: The TV Show" on MTV, a show that you probably don't watch, but lots of annoying teens do!

Miss Chloe was totally starstruck.

Celebrity Photobomb!

Then came Campus Dance. This year we decided on an area for the entire class to congregate, which was the most brilliant idea EVER. (If you've ever been to the dance, you know what a sh*tshow it is to try to find your friends among the 70,000 or so attendees.) We got to see lots and lots of our friends in a very short time!

Loves me some Smershio!

Max just kept creepin up on us and photobombing!

Loves those former-Gastler sisters, now unofficial Brownies!

And forever loves my Felix!

And Laurie and Euge and KittyKat!

And TStar and Rashmi and friends and lovers.

And a fiercefacing JoeMoroneeeeeee (I taught him that face)

Everyone was very very happy to see everyone else!

We LOVES reunions!

Hey PLockett! Haven't seen you since Vegas!

Hey Charlie and Caro! And Max AGAIN.

We looooves a Charlie and Caroline!!!

You can't really tell from this pic, but at the end of the dance - around 1am - the music was off and the bars were closed and the entire green had emptied out, and the only people remaining (everyone you see here) were Class of 2004 people. Because we were having such a great time. Because all our friends were all in one place!

We did eventually end up at Viva/Paragon though.

And then Antonio's. Where I found JoeMorone waiting in line and handed him a $100 bill to buy me two slices of Chicken Parm pizza and he ended up spending it on 4 pizzas which he distributed to our friends in the crowd.

Oops! It was a pretty sweet move though...

Somehow we all made it home around 2am.

And then four hours later at 6am I had to wake up to get to the train station to head back to New York to shoot a wedding THAT SAME DAY.

I slept on the train, pulled into Penn Station at 1030am. Ran home to take a shower. And by 12pm was at Le Parker Meridian downing my 3rd Large Iced Coffee taking getting-ready pics for my beautiful bride and groom.

The wedding venue (the penthouse of the hotel) was EPICCCCC and overlooked all of Central Park.

The church, Grace Chapel, was pretty too!

After the wedding was over (around midnight) I went home. Slept until 6am. And then was back on the train to Providence, just in time to catch the graduation procession!

Literally the second I met up with my friends, our Class of 2004: 10 Year Reunion group started moving through the gauntlet of the just-graduated Class of 2014 on College Hill.

It was pretty awesome!

You guys, HERMIONE graduated this year and was here in this crowd SOMEWHERE!!!

(I stole this pic from Instagram.)

Congrats Seniors!!!

I love Brown SO SO SOOOOO much!!!!

Then we had a little brunch at FishCo and our reunion weekend was over.

It was so good to be back. I was a little bummed to have missed the party on Saturday night, and I was exhausted after going back and forth from NYC. But it was totally worth it!

BRUNO 4 EVA!!!!