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. 

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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!

The Road to the Ritz! / Colorado!

Allan and I landed in Denver around noon yesterday and headed straight into town to have lunch with his fabulous wedding planner friend Francesca. Mr. Allan has been in the wedding biz for much longer than I have and scores pretty much all of his $10-$12k wedding/event gigs through planner friends who are designing and planning these million-dollar shindigs.

We ate at Kitchen, and it was SOY GOOD.

I had the curried chicken salad. (Yes yes I am eating LOTS of salads these days in an effort to lose 200 lbs and escape the diabetic fate of my dad and grandmommy.)

LOVES downtown Denver!

There were also salted caramel treats to go with our lunch. YUM

After lunch we happened upon a cute little store.

When in Denver...

(I did not buy any. (Hi Dad!) I can't handle weeds. I eat and then pass out and am generally useless.)

Then it was time for a 2 hour drive into the mountains for our Engage14 retreat! If you missed my post on Engage13 in Arizona...it is here.

SO excited to return for my second engage (it is Allan's 6th) this time knowing LOTS of fun friends.

We rented a monstrous Surburban...it was the only car they had.

The drive into the mountains was SOY beautiful.

We arrived into Beaver Creek...which is just stunning.

The Ritz-Carlton there stands in a league of it's own.

We got hooked up with a pretty epic three bedroom suite...methinks we will be hosting some epic afterparties!

AND I beat Mr Allan in rock-paper-scissors and got the master bedroom. YESSSSSS

LOVES Colorado!!!! This is going to be insane.

WPPI 2014

WPPI - The Wedding and Portrait Photographers Invitational.

Or at least that's what I always call it in my head.

It's something similar but not quite that.

Last week marked my second year attending and this year it was SO nice to attend now knowing an armful of fabulous friends.

I landed, headed straight to the hotel, and a party was waiting for me.

We headed to Hakkasan for the opening night party. This club was intense!

Drinks flowed freely, people were WASTEYFACE...

I bumped into random people who recognized me from the year before...

The lighting of this place was awesome.

We partied with superfamous photographer Jose and his husband Joel.

Crazy to think that one year ago I stood in a massive crowd, just one of Jose's hundreds of thousands of admirers, soaking in every word of wisdom he had to offer...

And now I can call him and Joel my friends...

WPPI is the best!!!

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The next morning we walked the trade show to check out what kinds of speakers and silly displays they had for us...

There were lots.

Oh girl...

Night descended and we got the hookup on an epic party being hosted in the MGM Penthouse, the most beautiful suite the casino has to offer with an EPIC terrace overlooking all of Las Vegas...

My friend Sarah Natasha introduced me to her bestie Christine, and we immediately became BFFs, telling everyone that we were siblings.

Loved rolling around with this fabulous crew all week!

Did I mention the views were STUNNING?

Yup the suite had two stories. It was amaze.

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On Day 3, I again was walking the tradeshow floor. When I noticed a hunk in a tight-fitting T-shirt demonstrating some cool camera accessories...

Turns out it was my buddy PeterLockett from college!

We swapped numbers and met up for drinks after the trade show...

THEN, as coincidence would have it, Rebecca (my BFF who I met at WPPI last year and who has introduced me to EVERYONE I know in the wedding industry over the past year) invited me to a fabulous party hosted by her friend Arlene, who I happened to have met several months ago at Abby's brother's INSANE rehearsal dinner at a Newport Mansion.

And, of course, Arlene's party (her company's party) happened to be in the exact same penthouse suite that we had partied in the night before because she was friends with the guy who had rented it out and he had loaned it to her company for the evening's party.

AMAZING!

LOVE being able to get my friends into the best party in all of Vegas.

And this was only the pre-party.

Because I'm now friends with people who are "in-the-know", we knew to head to a secret party called SilverRush, the UN-official party of WPPI, while the tens of thousands of other attendees went to some lame overpriced party at some other hotel.

Since this was our last night in Vegas...and this is VEGAS...we decided to treat yo self...

And hopped a limo over to the party...

Seriously. Only in Vegas.

We rolled up to the party just as Jose and Joel and their entourage were arriving as well.

I think we were just destined to be besties!

We walked the red carpet...

Some people got REALLY dressed up!

And the venue...the Artisan Hotel...was AMAZINGLY cool.

Late in the evening I befriended some fabulous obeses who had ordered PIZZAAAA.

WE LOVES A PIZZA!!!!

But not as much as we LOVES our CrumsCrumsCrums!

A serious thank you to Rebecca who has changed my life over this past year and introduced me to some of the most amazing people I have ever met in my life.

Before I knew Rebecca, I was alone in my own little world of wedding photography... now I truly feel I have met some soulmates, people who do exactly what I do at the same level or WAY WAY WAY BEYOND... people who don't think it's totally crazy to have trips lined up to 7 different countries and 23 states over the course of the year...people who work hard and play super hard and know exactly what you go through in your day-to-day life because they go through it too.

So much has happened over the past year. And this next year (between now and WPPI 2015) is going to have SO MUCH MORE in store!