South France Wedding!!!

So on Wednesday night I flew JFK to Nice. 

I got the global upgrade that cleared literally 3 second before I was going to board. 

At first it said first class had checked in full and then just as I was about to hand the lady my ticket I saw my initials disappear off the Upgrade List on the screen hanging over the gate and I SQUEALED.

If I'm going be totally honest, I kind of don't like the semi-new first class "cubbies" because when my seat goes all the way flat my feet get jammed into the cubby and there's nowhere for me knees to go...but totally a first world first class problem. I'll take what I can get.

I got lots of work done and a little nap in (it was a red eye) and we landed in Nice around 11am Thursday.

Then I picked up my little rental car, a cute little Mercedes C-Class (I have to have the car for the next two weeks so I figured I'd treat mah self) and we cruised along the coast to Beaulieu Sur Mer, site of our wedding festivities.

Rehearsal/Welcome Dinner took place at this cute little museum-y event space right on the water in Beaulieu.

There were lots of tasty french appetizers. This one though was quite deceiving. It was looked like a meatball or some warm teriyaki chicken skewers, but NOPE it was cold and slimy tuna and veal. TOGETHER. YUCK. 

 Love my little bride and groom!

Also bumped into some other old friends-of-friends like Sasha who, along with bride Lindsay, grew up with our Felixfriend!

A lovely lovely evening. 

Wedding day (Friday) prep took place at our host hotel, La Reserve de Beaulieu...this place is prettttty epic.

Getting ready took place in a massive suite.
 

And we did "first-look" pics right on the ocean...

And then the ceremony/reception site was high up in the hills of Villefranche overlooking EVERYTHING. It was EPIC.

Anyone who's been around me while I take pictures knows that I'm usually able to get pretty natural smiles out of people by simply telling them to laugh at each other. But there's always one person in a group that's TERRIBLE at it and busts out some crazy maniacal laugh and ends up looking ridiculous. Let's see if you can pick her out of this group....

Loves a fancy getaway vehicle!

And this sunset at the Chateau where we had dinner and dancing was EPIC.

They hadn't planned to have their first dance until much later...but I made them fake it for the picture.

And then the dance party was nutz and people got wasteyface.

#Coozyhand #Triplechin #Limbo

#Wasteyface #Boobstare

#Wasteyface #Marshmallowfail

#ChocoFondue #FondueFace #Wasteyface

#Shotgunning

Any wedding where I end up spanking a bridesmaid with a blow-up balloon-guitar at the end of the night is a pretty good wedding...

And then my camera got commandeered.

Soy much fun!

Congrats Lindsay and John!!!!

Liz & Patch's Devil's Thumb Ranch Wedding | Colorado

I get to go to the best places for the best weddings ever. It's awesome. I know it.

Liz & Patch's Colorado Wedding was no exception.

Devil's Thumb Ranch is situated about 2 hours northwest of Denver in this remote valley surrounded by fields of wild horses and snow-capped mountain ranges. 

The setting was truly stunning.

I've started getting better at taking detail shots. A lot of times brides and grooms don't care all that much about the details. They just want to look happy and pretty. But magazines and blogs LOVE the detail shots. They are all about them. And someone who shoots great details whose work gets published by magazines all the time might actually be a terrible wedding photographer because they are awkward around people and take awkward people shots. 

Well...I already know I'm pretty good at shooting people...but now that I'm trying to break into the big leagues I'm trying to be great at detail shooting as well.

Croci and Sam are both former brides of mine. They were bridesmaids this time around and I had lots of fun messing around with them. They're always game to do whatever I tell them.

Weddings like this don't even feel like work. I'm just clowning around with my friends creating "art". And I love that.

The wedding was soooo pretty.

And the dance party was kind of ridiculous...

We had a parasol that KatieKerrick turned into a bonnet/lampshade head...

Which Geish then used to transform into one of those venom-spewing dinosaurs from Jurassic Park. (The one that killed Newman.)

Which Sarah then turned into a limbo-thingy...it was pretty frickin hilarious...

There are so many more pictures and so little time.

The night ended though with 2 DK brides and a DK groom sitting in a giant fireplace.

Love getting to hang with my harem of DKbrides!!!

Looking forward to the next one of these in August!

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!