Jen & Marty's Plantation Wedding: Mandeville, LA

My second consecutive plantation wedding weekend took me down to New Orleans.

I stayed with Semmesey and Katie and Stella (gasp! I didn't take any pictures! Stella is soy big now!)

They left after a day and I spent the rest of the weekend house-sitting.

On Friday we had the wedding rehearsal and rehearsal dinner at City Park in New Orleans.







For the wedding on Saturday we drove across Lake Pontchartrain on the Causeway - a 30-mile bridge, the longest bridge in the world until 2011 - to Mandeville, where the bride's mom and stepdad have a little plantation summer home.



The Causeway is pretty awesome...it feels like you are crossing an ocean, it takes about half an hour to cross the whole thing without traffic.



Oh. My. Agod.

This property was crazy gorgeous.

You enter the main gate into a long circular driveway that circles a beautiful fountain. (This is a view from the 3rd floor window of the house)

And then behind the house is a massive "lawn" that extends all the way down to the water.

Giant oak trees surround the house, covered in beautiful Spanish moss.

It is other-worldly.

(And they only spend a few weeks a year here. The rest of their time is spent at primary homes in Carmel, Montana, Charleston........sounds awful.)

There were lots of pretty wedding details.

And I was really happy with this semi-staged shot I got when the bridesmaids saw Jen for the first time.

Guests started arriving around 5pm, just as the sun began to set.

Each and every guest gasped as they entered the property marveling at the beautiful surroundings.

And look who came! Mrs. Grutzmacher and Millieeeeeee (Doug's mom and niece).

(I got the gig because I photographed Doug's sister Annie's wedding to Gary a couple years ago, and Gary is the brother of Marty - the groom.)

The ceremony was held down the lawn over by the lake...

It was booootyful.

Friends gave funny speeches and readings...

Marty, an artist, read a poem he had written for Jen...

Which brought everyone to tears...

Yay!!!

Loves the Machado family!

And LOVES these Machado sister-wives!

MILLLLIEEEEEEEEE!!!!

Millie and Gus are cousins and they are soyyyy cute.

There were so many beautiful spots to take pictures.

And OMG Marty's mom is the NICEST lady ever and kept making sure I was drinking.

SOY LOVELY.

Congratulations Marty & Jen!!!!

The End.

Back to New York!

Off to NOLA!

Plantation Wedding Week 2! Yayyyyyyy

Charleston / Thom & Ashleigh's Wedding

I'm on my way back to NYC after a beautiful wedding weekend in Charleston, South Carolina.

We came down on Saturday to check out the plantation where the wedding was going to be taking place.

The Boone Hall Plantation, made famous in The Notebook as Rachel McAdams's family's summer home, and more recently, the site of Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds's Wedding.

This place is S-T-U-N-N-I-N-G!!!!!

The driveway to the main house is literally 2 miles long.

We decided to have the ceremony off to the side of the row of oaks under all the arches. It looked awwwwesome. 

There were so many incredible places to shoot at this venue...

In front of the mansion (every time I was reminded of the fact that Ryan Gosling AND Ryan Reynolds had both stood where I was currently standing I squealed ever-so-silently into my soul)...

Out in the cotton fields...(which totally reminded everyone of 12 Years A Slave, womp wompppppp)

Or around the badass pickup truck that Ashleigh's dad brought down to South Carolina just for the wedding...

The bride and groom were soyyyy happy and beautiful.

And everything was impeccably designed...

LOVES shooting the weddings of fabulous friends in fabulous locations!!!!

First plantation wedding ever...but definitely not the last!

Okie...heading back to New York for a marathon day of shoots before jumping back down South again on Wednesday. Yup, I have ANOTHER plantation wedding this coming weekend, this time in New Orleans!