LA!

My trips to LA are always a whirlwind, and that's the way I like it.

Fun, efficient, delicious.

THURSDAY

I arrived on Thursday morning off the redeye and picked up my rental and headed straight to West Hollywood to grab a scrumptious CurryBrunch with Kristy, Kelli, and Matt.



Then that evening I met up with Jesse and friends for some dancing...




FRIDAY

The next morning I lunched with Danny...




And then had an afternoon shoot at the Hotel Bel-Air.

We lunched in the new Wolfgang Puck restaurant right in the hotel and saw Wolfgang himself circulating to greet VIP guests like Les Moonves, CEO of CBS.

Food was amazing.

My friend/client wanted pretty editorial-style photos, so he had rented out the Oprah Suite. (The suite Oprah regularly stays in whenever she's in town.) It was pretttttyyyy nice.



It had its own outdoor courtyard with Jacuzzi...



And two lovely bedrooms.



We shot multiple setups all throughout the suite.



And I can't show you any official photos from the shoot, except maybe this one, of one of our pretty extras.



SATURDAY

I met up with AnnieAli to chat with her about her wedding next summer and to force her to nail down a date so I could be sure to be there to shoot it. (Already have 3 weekends in September 2013 booked up.) And Diana and Jason joined as well. We brunched over at Comme Ça on Melrose. And the Salmon Tartare was HEAVENLY.

It was a salmon-dill-caper-cremefraiche mixture sitting on top of a what was basically a giant tater tot.



SOOOO DELICIOUS

We all had foodbabies after.



Then I met up with Amanda and Michael to do their engagement shoot finally.

(Mr. and the future Mrs. Prince are quite the power couple, with her being full-time on-air talent, him being Mr. Guess-Man, and their new restaurant opening in a couple weeks, it's been hard to pin them both down for an afternoon.)

But the pictures came out amazing.



SUNDAY

The great thing about Delta Diamond is I can book the latest and cheapest flight, and then switch my flight the day-of for free.

I happened to wake up at 4am. (Probably from excitement.) So I drove straight to the airport and jumped on the 7am flight.

I just love Vegas. Every time I'm back I'm just filled with happy thoughts and memories of the best weekend of my life.

So I'm here for the next 48 hours for a couple days of relaxation, poker, and eatparties before my double-header wedding weekend back on the East Coast.

Wheee!

Melanie & Willis's Wedding

In the great bridal spectrum, most brides fall into the average to below average category...they're the best they've ever looked...but it's still...meh......they're a pigeon disguised as a seagull.

The average DK bride is generally above average or top 10%. These brides radiate beauty, elegance, and general splendor on a daily basis. They are the flawless doves of brideland.

And then there's Melanie. The great white swan bride.



Mel was put on this earth to wear a wedding dress. Definitely a 1%-er.

Literally, when the doors opened and she walked into the room escorted by DK2 (her big brudder), there was a collective gasp.




(I've heard gasps before, but usually it's because someone trips and falls down some stairs.)

Megoon was a beautiful bridesmatron.



The ceremony was cute. The reverend yelled at the photographer for not sitting during his sermon.

"But I'm the photographer!" she whined...
He just shrugged... "Please sit."

Normally if I'm working, I HATE a strict rev, but in this case, as a guest, I grinned from ear to ear. The photographer had yelled at me when she accidentally backed her head into my camera while I taking a shot. "You have to keep at least TWO FEET AWAY FROM ME!!!") We could have been friends. But instead she chose to be enemies. Bad choice, lady.

Ahem.

Back to the wedding.

SO cute!






I just love Megoon's family.



DK2, what a hunk!



Between the ceremony and reception we had a 40-minute break. So Goon's brilliant brother and sister suggested we run to the closest CVS to get a print of an epic shot I had just taken at the ceremony.



Imagine the gleeful expression below except looking at the framed photo I had just given them. It was pretty much the same.



Oooh! There was a fun photo booth. I've decided to add a photobooth service as an an add-on to my wedding package. So easy and I can probably charge an extra 1K-1.5K. Woo!




I had also taken Mellis's engagement pic, which was prominently displayed. Yay....



Ohhhh after eating and dancing, there was a PIE BAR.



LOVES a pie barrrrr!!!!!!!!



The photobooth got kinda silly.



Oooh I think I may be shooting a Miami wedding for Hot Keith (below) and his fiance. Yayyyyy...



Loves fancy weddings leading to other fancy weddings!



Oh...I forgot to mention the entire day was INCREDIBLY SCORCHINGLY HOT.




But once we were drunky, it didn't matter.





Meg's mom got stepped on and rolled her ankle. Sadface. (I do love how DK2's mom seems to think it's hilarious though.)



Wheeeee!!!!



Air guitars!



Geek glasses!



The End.

Congratulations Mellis!!!!!

Napa Wedding!

Napa is beautiful. Bride and groom got ready at an inn overlooking a vineyard.




The actual venue for the ceremony and reception though was place called Tra Vigne.



Bride Arianna went to Brown. I did not know her there, but we have a lot of mutual friends and she found me through photos of mutual friends I had tagged on Facebook. Yay Facebook!






Arianna and Matt were quite possibly the chill-est couple I've ever photographed. Not that my other brides are un-chill. But they had zero demands, zero expectations (well high expectations, but I think they trusted me completely), and zero dramas.



At night the trees lit up around the venue and it became a wine-filled fairyland.




Petey Pablo and Katie Pablo were there...



As was Laku...



As were a ton of other Brown people!



Twas fun!




We LOVES Napa!