Welcome to Sandy Lane

I've been to some fancy-ass places...but this place. Sandy Lane. OMG.

Pictures really don't do it justice. When I first looked at the website I thought, "this DOES NOT look like $1000 a night resort..." but when you roll into the gated property and walk through the main lobby onto the gorgeous marble (?) terrace overlooking the beach and ocean...it all makes sense. 

It is breathtaking. (Kristen and Chrispy have been here. They can attest to its epic-ness.)

The wedding planner informed us that there are currently multiple celebrities on-property.

Over the past couple days she says she's seen Tiger Woods+1, Pamela Anderson, and Tim Tebow (accompanied by a gorgeous man who may or may not be his boyfriend).

It is beautiful... but it is unbearably hot and humid. I spent all evening sweating into my jeans which is pretty much the worst feeling in the world.

Also I am on the lookout for Rihanna, who apparently stays at Sandy Lane whenever she's in town.

The pool is cray. We are having a pre-wedding pool party there tomorrow.

Tonight kicked off with a fabulous welcome dinner at this amazing seaside restaurant, Lone Star.

There were appetizers of individual wild mushroom truffle and squash raviolis. (Giant ravioli! One for each person!)

SOOOOO good though.

There were some incredible tomatoes and mozzorellas...

Jerk pork on a bed of braised cabbage, plantains, and bacon that was TO DIE FOR.

And Seafood Linguini with noodles that were cooked PERFECTLY...

There was Creme Brulee

And also little donuts. YUM YUM I AM OBESE

Oh and then we went back to Sandy Lane where we partied in the private villa that had been rented for the week and had a little afterparty poolparty.

There was some semi-famous DJ handling the beats who was one of several DJs who had been flown in for the week's many events.

I left to get a good night's rest since I woke up at 5am to catch our 8am flight this morning and tomorrow is another full day of food, sun, and fun.

Night 1 of 4!

Cannot believe this time next week I will be in the mountains of Colorado doing this all over again with some of my favorite people in the world.

Barbados!

We have arrived!

Did you have any idea where Barbados is? I did not. All I knew was that I was in the Atlantic Ocean somewhere vs the Pacific.

It's HOT here!!!

No Rihanna sightings yet...

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.

Boston -> DC

I flew up to Boston from New York on Tuesday to do an engagement shoot for this fabulous and super nice couple.

They rented a bunch of dresses (including a wedding dress) for the shoot. It was pretty awesome. Kind of exhausting. But I would loooove to shoot their epic wedding in Beijing next year so I'm doing my best to make them happy happy happy.

While in Boston I stayed with Danald and CaseyCarson who is preggo and having their baby soon!

Wednesday I had lunch with JoeMorone...

Then we met with our app developer friend who is going to be designing the simple but brilliant iPhone app I came up with that is going to turn us into hundred-millionaires.

After our meeting I flew down to DC where I'm shooting some products for Smathers & Branson today and tomorrow.

It's always great to see the boys.

Peter (and Michelle) just sold their house in Georgetown and are moving out to San Francisco in 20 days where they are finishing renovations on the epic new home in Seacliff that they secretly purchased several months ago. (AC, I'm going to intro you guys so you can all be besties. #worlddomination)

They're also expanding S&B into a new office space which we used for the shoot today.

So many exciting things happening!

OK I will post about the epic week that was Engage14 while I'm on an airplane one of these days.

Flying back to New York tomorrow. Wedding in the Hamptons on Saturday. Wedding in New Jersey on Sunday. Flying to Barbados on Wednesday.

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.