Monaco, Hotel Du Cap, and other Fancy French things

On Saturday night I met up with my friend James and his husband Bjarni for drinks up in Eze, the famous mountaintop rock-city. I've been several times during the day but never at night. It was deserted which was GREAT because normally it is FULL of tourists.

I will have to bring Rusty back here next week if we have time for sunset drinks!

James is an aspiring photographer who lives in Nice who I met through a mutual friend via Facebook. LOVES social media.

We had drinks on the terrace of the Chateau de La Chevere D'Or.

During the day you can usually see the entire coastline. It's pretty epic. 

James took this pic for me outside the entrance to the hotel. I like.

It's a really cool village. You have to park outside the main city and the rest is all walking on little cobblestone paths and stuff. If you're ever in the area you HAVE to go during the day to check it out and be one of those awful tourists that everyone hates.

After drinks we drove into Monaco for dinner. Passed by the famous Casino and Paris Hotel.

And also by the new yacht club.

James had gotten us reservations at the "hottest new restaurant in Monaco" Song Qi. Chinese food. As soon as he told me it was Chinese food I was very suspicious. I have almost never had "fancy" Chinese food that was worth how overpriced it is. The best Chinese food is cheap and found in Chinatown. (Or expensive and found in fancy Hong Kong hotels.)

This place was nestled between Rolls-Royce, Ferrari and McLaren dealerships...so you just know it was going to be a racket. (Did I use the word racket correctly? It felt right.)

LOVES this metallic blue and silver Rolls-Royce convertible in blue and silver.

(If you EVER see me driving one of these please slap me.) (And then get in!)

So...dinner...

It WAS really good. But it was SO overpriced.

I hate being one of those poor people that complains about expensive things. But I hate being made foolish by paying 26 EUROS for 6 pieces of dim sum (2 har gow, 2 siu mai, 2 dumplings) that taste very similar to a $2 basket of pretty much the same thing minus a droplet or two of caviar.

Oh and a bowl of steamed "jasmine" rice was 11 EURO. They sprinkled a few green herbs on it to make it "fancy".

It WAS delicious though. Our favorite was the Kung Pao Chicken.

We actually ordered an extra plate of it for dessert.

The next day I checked out of Beaulieu and headed in the direction of StTropez where I'll be hiding out for a few days.

On the way I stopped by Hotel du Cap Eden Roc. One of the most famous hotels in the world. (It's where all the celebs stay, especially during the Cannes Films Festival.)

Lindsay and John, my bride and groom from the weekend, are kicking off their honeymoon here and stopped in to give them a sneak preview of their wedding pics.

This place is amazing. There are all these high dives and rope swings built into the rocks and you can just leap and frollick into the sea or various little grottoes. It's a playground for adults. And their spoiled brat children.

I had the 50 Euro hamburger. #helpmeimpoor

It was really great. But the bun was way big.

But honestly this one of the fanciest-feeling fancyplaces in the world. (Maybe even fancier than Sandy Lane.)

And then ("NO 'AND THEN!!!'") I drove down the coast to Antheor, where I'm crashing with my parents' good friends and former neighbors Marie and Doug for a few days.

They've given me one of their lovely guest rooms and I want to stay here FOREVER.

Literally this is the view out my window.



So thankful to know such fabulous people!

I'm going up the street to check out our hold house later. I hear it's unrecognizable. Will post pictures obviously!

Crazy Wedding Weekend: Maine to St. John

I just got back the other day from the CRAZIEST wedding weekend I've ever had. Crazy in terms of the miles I had to travel to get where I needed to go.

Wedding #1 was taking place Sunday at a place called Camp Vega in Maine.

Wedding #2 was taking place MONDAY at a place called Caneel Bay in St. John...in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

We drove up to Maine on Saturday, leaving NYC at 930am and arriving in Maine at around 6pm. We made frequent stops and there was a ton a traffic. A 6 hour drive took almost 9 hours. Not fun.

We got some rest though and Sunday was wedding day and the wedding was BEAUTIFUL.

They decorated the lodge all pretty-like. 

And the ceremony was held at the side of the lake and the bride arrived on a floating pontoon escorted by her father as violins played Pachelbel's Canon and EVERYONE CRIED because it was THE MOST BEAUTIFUL WEDDING ENTRANCE THEY HAD EVER SEEN IN THEIR LIFE.

The groom cried...

It was awwwwwesome. And look at all those DK Brides!

Sarah is the last of the original group to get married. A few years ago Sam's wedding was one of the very first weddings I ever shot.

Since then, all the other bridesmaids have gotten married and they have ALL been DKBrides!

Sarah is #7!!! (Liza, #6, was last weekend. Fabulous wedding outside Boston. Didn't have time to blog about it. Oops.)

Congrats Sarah & Seth!!!

It was SUCH a fun wedding. It was NUTS. KatieK (below) is the funniest wedding guest ever.

EVER.



LOVE seeing all my DKBrides!!!!

The wedding ended at 11pm and at 11:10pm I had said my goodbyes and jumped in my car with Ian (who was helping me as my wonderful assistant/copilot) and we booked it back to NYC in order for me to catch my 8am flight to St. Thomas.

We sped through the night and actually made it back into NYC by 5:15am. (Drive took just over 6 hours.) I was surprised. I honestly thought there was a 20% chance I was totally going to miss my flight. But no, I even had time to run home, take a quick shower, and re-pack my bags so I could travel sans checked luggage.

I was at the airport by 6:30am. And at 8am I was taking off to St Thomas.

I landed in St Thomas at 12pm but nooooo the journey does not end there.

From St Thomas airport I had to take a 45 minute cab ride to Red Hook where I had to catch the 1pm ferry (it leaves every hour...had I checked a bag I totally would have missed it and would have had to wait until the 2pm ferry. Also, keep in mind my bride is at this very second getting hair and makeup done and anxiously awaiting my arrival since the ceremony is at 5pm.)

This part of the journey was most stressful because I was cutting it so close.

But I made it on. And was on St. John by 1:45. 

Whew!

From there I went to Caneel Bay where the bride and my trusty bestie Allan were awaiting my arrival. (Allan flew in the day before to help me cover getting-ready shots (or to cover the whole wedding in the event that I missed my flight.) I needed an insurance plan because this whole adventure was PRETTTTTY risky and A LOT of things could've gone wrong...)

The bride got a great deal out of it though! Two great photogs for the price of one! (Allan agreed to help me at a fraction of his regular $12K rate since it was a Monday wedding and he is the best friend EVER.)

The wedding itself was gorgeous. They did the ceremony overlooking the ocean. And then the reception was at the Sugar Mill Ruins.

The first dance was beauuuutiful and the bride's momma cried.

It was a small wedding (about 50 people) so by the end of the evening everyone knew and loved us and we partied with our wonderful new friends.

By the time we got back to our room after the wedding, I was DEAD.

We took Tuesday to chill at our resort.

Then Wednesday we went back to NYC.

And I can finally breathe.

Now I was supposed to have this weekend off. First weekend off in months. And I was GOING to just chill at home in NYC...

But on Thursday the sweet baby jesus dropped some tickets to the MTV Video Music Awards in my lap. So I booked a last minute flight and am taking off for LA tomorrow for the VMAs Sunday followed by the Emmys the following day. (Don't have tix to those...yet...but hoping to have the hookup on some sweet afterparties or something! We'll see!)

Crazy life! YOLO!

Friday-Sunday / DC to Hamptons to Jersey

 So I did my shoot in DC for Smathers & Branson last Thursday and Friday. I wish I had time to post more but I am on my way to drinks and a TGA party and still have to pack for my 8am flight to Barbados tomrorow.

FRIDAY

We did our shoot around DC and in S&B's new office space. Moose here modeled for us a bit.

Peter also showed me a pic of the view from the new roofdeck he's building on their new house in Seacliff and it is NUTS. Excited for my next trip out to SF!

OK so Friday I finished my shoot and headed to the airport to catch my easy 1-hour flight back to NYC.

But of course there were CRAZY STORMS in NYC and all flights were cancelled so I had to book it to Union Station and buy a ridiculous $400 seat on the Acela train back to New York. (I had to be out in East Hampton to shoot Jamie & Mark's Wedding first thing on Saturday).

UGHHHH. So I get to Penn Station after a 3 hour train ride at midnight and then have to take a cab to the airport to pick up my car at AirPark and finally get home at 1am.

SATURDAY

I woke up at 9am to head uptown to pick up Ian (who was working as my assistant for the day) and head out to East Hampton. We found out some friends were out there for the weekend so we arrived and grabbed a quick lunch with Kim and bumped into a few other random friends downtown. Never been out to the Hamptons...it's pretty neat. Expensive.

After lunch, we then headed over to Jamie and Mark's gorgeous wedding at the Maidstone Club.

The Maidstone is like a super old school fancy Hamptons golf and beach club. Rumor has it that this was their very first gay wedding. That's kind of exciting. 

The wedding was AWESOME. Jamie was the happiest groom I've ever seen. (He's a talent agent and sends me lots and lots of headshot clients, so I made sure his wedding photos were super epic.) At midnight we jumped in the car and drove 2 hours back to the city since I had another wedding in Jersey the next day.

SUNDAY

I started my morning in Brooklyn where the bride was getting ready at her family's home.

(Note: I DO NOT advise getting ready an hour away from where your wedding is taking place. It is a recipe for almost-disaster as you will soon find out.)

Long story short on my way to the ceremony I got super lost and went to the wrong address in the wrong part of New Jersey and almost missed the start of the ceremony. My idiot assistant Jeffrey (this is going to be a whole other blog post) got even more lost and missed the ceremony COMPLETELY.

In the end it turned out ok though and it was a beautiful Greek wedding.

And the bride was happy and beautiful...

And they made it rain which was pretty cool.

Was NOT excited, however, to work with these people...the WORST wedding videographers on the planet. This little f*cker was in my way at every possible turn. Standing right in the middle of the aisle at the end of the ceremony and walking out just a foot or two in front of them THE ENTIRE time and totally f*cking up what would have been some incredible shots.

I took these pics as insurance to show the couple why it's not fault for not being able to grab certain key photos.

Ok tomorrow on my way to Barbados I will post about the most inept photographer's assistant in the world. Maybe.