Action packed July 4th weekend in LA

So this time next week I had arrived in LA. And upon arrival I headed to SoHo House with my wedding industry friends Brooke and Rebecca to celebrate Brooke's bday.

At 10pm Brooke told us she was kidnapping us to take us to a secret place for an epic time.

I heard a rumor that she was taking us to The Abbey and asked her, "Are you taking us to the Abbey?"

And she was like, "uh...yes...have you been?"

Which I thought was the stupidest question ever, because pretty much anyone and everyone in LA has been to the Abbey at least once or twice or a hundred times in their life. It's the biggest, most-popular bar in all of West Hollywood and has been for at least twenty years...

So I was like, "uh...duh...YEAH...hasn't everyone?"

And she was like, "oh...well my uncle owns it."

...............so we went to the Abbey with David Cooley's niece. Amazing.

We got to sit at Mr. Cooley's owner's table and had three dedicated gogoboys/servers.

It was epic. Never have I gotten bottles at the Abbey.

And so right when I thought I'd experienced everything West Hollywood had to offer, Brooke's birthday brought it to the next level.

Yay!!!!

Then, for July 4th (Friday). We headed down to Long Beach, where Lady Di (in town from Arizona) had rented a beach house for her birthday weekend.

I never knew there was a fancy part of Long Beach!

Happy Birthday Diana/America!!!!

Don't you just loooove the baby superhero/American flag shirt I found on shirtwoot?

Sunset prettiness!

We DEVOURED that epic cake.

Then on Saturday morning I woke up and drove to Malibu where we started preparations for the beautiful beach wedding I was shooting.

Hair and makeup took place at this epic mansion in the gated hills of Malibu.

And my bride and groom were so sweet!

And at there wedding was a surprise celebrity attendee...Miss Brandi Glanville from the Housewives of Beverly Hills!

Oh I also forgot to mention I did two crazy amazing engagement shoots for two crazy beautiful couples whose weddings I'm shooting later this year.

Wally and Kate, who are getting married in Palm Springs in October...

And Michael and Jamie, who are getting married in South Carolina in December.

After the wedding, I woke up first thing Sunday morning and jumped on an 8am flight to Maui.

More on that later...I'm about to go diving. I'm in Belize!!!

Gays to the Rescue / Pasadena Wedding

The wedding we were at Sunday was really fun. Although it started with a tiny snafu.

It was a daytime wedding, ceremony was at noon. So we started hair and makeup at 6am. And they were keeping it simple so there was no bridal party. So the morning was quiet. Just me and the lovely bride and makeup artist/hair stylist.

At 8am, 2 hours into hair and makeup, the bride's INSANE aunt/mother-figure walked into the room.

And what does she say? "Oh my god, your hair looks so UGLY! It looks like a rat's nest!"

Her hair looked wonderful. It was teased a bit for volume, so up close the little flyaways and tendrils looked maybe a little messy...but the shape was great and the intricate updo looked fabulous.

I was like, "Um...Aunt Christy...can we please NOT use the word UGLY to describe anything related to the bride ON HER WEDDING DAY?!?!?!?"

"No no no! We have to do it over. Like this picture!" She says to the makeup artist, showing her a grainy-ass picture of some random chick where you can barely make out the hairdo...

Within minutes, poor Liz was in tears. 

 I stood by...somewhat helpless to do anything...as we started re-doing the hair from scratch...

I sent out an SOS/Mayday Mayday...

Within the hour, the gays arrived with champagne and Whitney Houston playlists, becoming Liz's impromptu unofficial bridesmaids and LITERALLY saving the day.

(I honestly think we deserve the congressional medal of honor.)

The venue, the Athenaeum at CalTech, was gorgeous...

And the couple was happy and beautiful.

So glad everything worked out in the end!

Of course the gays MADE the party!

Such fun. Congrats Liz, David, Smileyjohn and **Dannysmith2!!!!!!!!!

** - not to be confused with DannySmith1

Smileyjohn's Engagement!!!!!

Smileyjohn got engaged to DannySmith2** last night after the wedding we were all at (I was shooting).

A little irritated that he didn't tell me to shoot the secret proposal that happened on the grounds of CalTech (where our wedding was and where they first met)...but glad I at least saw them immediately after and was able to catch this pic...

So happy for you guys!!!

** - not to be confused with DannySmith1

RAINBOW STORM / Diana's Bachelorette

Jesse, Will, Smileyjohn and I rolled into Palm Springs on Saturday afternoon to join in on Diana's Bachelorette celebration.



We checked into our room at the Renaissance, a gorgeous resort hotel.



And we spent a good hour or two dancing around our hotel room and being really really gay.




Then we stopped at a Jewish deli for giant sandwiches.



And then it was on to the pretty little house Diana and her ladyfriends had rented for the weekend for a little preparty.

Originally our entrance was supposed to be a surprise...but some awful secret-keeper failed to keep it a secret.





Diana love love LOVES the gays, as you can probably tell from her frequent appearances when we go gay dancing. So the theme for the night was RAINBOW.



Our preparty was super fun. We decorated the bride-to-be in the usual phallic accoutrements.




And we stood around and played several rounds of Never Have I Ever "It's gotta be SEXUAL!!!" edition as we eagerly awaited the arrival of some "special guests".





Finally our guests, the strippers, arrived.

We had ordered them from www.palmspringsstrippers.com and hand-picked "Drew" and "Travis" to appear.

But upon arrival, it was VERY clear that neither of our visitors were Drew or Travis.

And one of the strippers was SO FAT and REFUSED to take off his shirt, saying "I'm so out of shape." To which we responded, "Then WHY are you HERE?!?!?" It was ridiculous that he had the audacity to even show up AND that he expected to be paid. It made for a funny story though.

In fact...a couple weeks before, I had been ichatting with Jesse and we had said:

me: wouldn't it be HILARIOUS
if he was hideous
6:26 PM
and he tries to dance on everyone
and each person who he goes up to is like ewww! ewww! get away!!!
Jesse: and we all SHRIEK!!!
me: HAHHAHAHHAHA
Jesse: lol
omg!
me: like he's a cockraoach!!!
me: hahahahahhaa
Jesse: lol
omg
dennis!

And that's pretty much EXACTLY what happened.



Obviously these pictures are going to be froggified.

But you can kind of get idea of what went down.









SO we had one FAT STRIPPER. And then the other stripper was a HOMOPHOBE. He refused to make eye contact with any of the boys. After about half an hour we asked them to leave. Never in my life would I ever have thought I'd be asking a stripper to LEAVE!

.............

From there we cabbed it to Hunter's. A fun dancey bar.






I was gesturing wildly and accidentally poked Jesse right in the eyeball. Literally I felt it squish. It was so gross. That's why he's squinting in this group picture.



We loves a rainbow storm!



There were so many girls and names to remember that we came up with the funniest nicknames for everyone. Sunshine...Azul....Coral....Macy...Katinka....Jeeem...




Late arrivals Danny and Steven were a welcome addition as always.







All us boys wore capes by the way. And EVERYONE was SO JEALOUS.




And then came the RAINBOW STORM!




It followed Lady Di everywhere she went.




So amazing.



And Will channeled Erykah Badu.



"I LOVE GAYS!!!!!!!!"



We just danced and danced and danced and acted SILLY.












It was SO FUN.

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

Some other hilarious quotes of the night.

"I'm actually a really successful realtor. I've love to come back when I'm in shape and show you what I can do." -The Fat Stripper
"Yeah right...BUH-BYE!!!!" -Jesse

"I only want to sleep under a rainbow!"

"I'm really nice....TO YOUR FACE." -what Smileyjohn's tagline would be if we were in a reality show

"We don't NEED to be the center of attention...we just ARE!" -what Jesse's would be

"Rainbow storm!!!!! Rainbow storm!!!!"

"D-I-N. DIANA!" (cheered to the tune of Madonna's "Gimme All Your Luvin")

"SmileyJohn, you're SO smart but then you say something totally stupid like that Coral is a shade of blue... give us back your Ph.D!"

"Wait....you have other gays?!?!?!" (to Diana when we found out other gays were attending)
"Oh they're from work? That's ok. Every workday needs a work gay!"

"We LOVES Lulu!!!" (30 minutes later) "We HATE Lulu!!!!"



At brunch the next day we sat separately from the girls because we weren't sure if maybe they had overloaded on Gay and if Diana suddenly woke up and realized that she HATES gays.



But no...she still loves us.



Happy Bachelorette Lady Di!