As I said in the last post, it was such a pleasure to shoot Mary and Peter's wedding at the Du Pont Country Club's Brantwyn Mansion in Delaware.  Thank you guys!
We started at Peter's mom's home for the ladies hair and make-up. 

Mary's sister, Sally, made all the jewelry for the wedding.  You can see her website here if you are interested in custom jewelry for your wedding or yourself.

We then went on to Brantwyn for the final getting ready and the fashion  portrait session (see blog post below).  Sally and Mary's mom, Christine, helped lace the dress.

I wanted to do a dark portrait of Mary and her sister – this room was perfect:

Meanwhile,  Mike is shooting the details and the guys.  I love that he finds his way into the kitchen as they are shucking the oysters!

Mary gave Peter canvases of two of their engagement images as a wedding present:

Peter and his best man:

The ceremony was in the back yard, sunken garden of the mansion – the light was amazing:

Mary's brother sang Con te Partiro:

I love that I can see Mary's Grandpa in the very back…and who is that guy jumping in the back (probably hard for you to see on the blog!)!:

Formal Bridal Party:

Not so formal Bridal Party!

 

Peter and Mary in the garden:

Their first dance and the toasts were held on the lawn:

The cakes included a construction-theme groom's cake which was later cut by a sword that was presented to Mary by her grandfather!  I think they cut the cake to "It's a jolly holiday with Mary"!

I still love to watch the parent dances…here is Peter dancing with his mother, Joy:

Post Mary's Spirit in the Sky speech:

Then I found myself late night in the raspberry room!

Meanwhile, Mike found himself on the porch!

Evidently, Peter's Aunt Bonnie is an artist and leaves her mark as a sheep which Peter has discovered on the guest signature board!

This is one of my favorite shots of the night where my flash bounced off the wall to light up Mary:

There are so many more I love…but this blog post must end sometime…so I'll end with our late night sneak-away portrait session – Ken and Sally came along for the ride!

 

 

Thank you guys – you are both lovely!

Mary and Peter's wedding was so special for us – we shot Mary's sister Sally a few years ago and have become such good friends with Ken and Sally since meeting them that I've met Mary and her entire family a number of times over the last few years.  So it was so awesome that Mary asked us to shoot her wedding and getting to know her and Peter over the winter…and I love that she was into doing a fashiony bridal session beforehand.  We spent some extra time before the ceremony taking the time to play in Brantwyn Mansion in Wilmington:

 




 



Stay tuned for the wedding post…

We'd just like to congratulate two of our nicest clients, Colleen and Manoli (whose wedding we shot last June) on their beautiful new baby girl, Ava.  Here are two favorite pics they sent…thank you guys for keeping us in the loop!

Here's a little memory lane :

Just a quick post to say we’re very excited that our Time 100 Gala photo of PepsiCo‘s Chairman and CEO Indra Nooyi is published in this week’s Time Magazine … page 2, lower right.   

Well it was another amazing year at the Time 100 Gala in NYC  for the Time 100 Most Influential People last Thursday evening.  This is my third year shooting the honorees and their Swarovski award and it is such a privilege to cover this event.  Here are a few highlights….

Robert Downey Jr.…my brother saw Iron Man and said it was great:

Lance Armstrong:

The incredibly warm and funny Suze Orman (she did pick up this super heavy award!)  I highly recommend her books and have bought The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous and Broke for everyone I know who is leaving college and starting their career!

Ambassador Nancy Goodman Brinker, the founder of the Susan G. Koman for the Cure organization.  She is the sister of Susan Koman.  What she’s done with Race for the Cure is amazing to me.

The lovely Senator John McCain.  His character is just oozing out of him.  I photographed him first in 2006 and it was so interesting to see the change just two years later – everyone cheered when he came in, Secret Service is now with him full time and were there as early (or earlier maybe) as we were:

One of the Swarovski sponsors, Kim, with the Senator:

Thanks so much to James from Access Hollywood for picking up my back-up camera to take a photo of me shooting him.  For those interested in the gear, I shoot this kind of job with my Canon 5D, a 24-70mm, a bracket, my 580 Speedlite flash, and a Canon flash battery on my waist to improve my flash recycle time.  I’m bouncing off the ceiling and Time has already set up two big hot lights on either side of me.  While the honorees eat dinner, I edit the pics on my laptop and provide them to Time and Swarovski that night.  I’m then able to go to the last 1-2 hours of the party which is really nice!:

Herbie Hancock performed at the event:

I  had the pleasure of meeting Elizabeth Gilbert who wrote Eat, Pray, Love among many other things as well as her charming father and Uncle Nick (not pictured).  She just gave me her website address and I encourage anyone thinking about writing, or photography for that matter, to read her thoughts on writing…the link is here.  I have often said "why not me".   

Senator George Mitchell and his wife:

Lorne Michaels from SNL – the SNL crew performed a skit that night:

Alex Rigopulos and Eran Egozy created Guitar Hero for Playstation and more – if you are a mom and haven’t heard of this yet…get ready!  My best friend Robin tells me she’s the drummer when she plays with her kids!

Indra Nooyi, Chairman and CEO of PepsiCo…incredible woman:

Rupert Murdoch:

The only man who has made me cry I was laughing so hard lately…thank you Judd Apatow for 40-Year Old Virgin!:

Judd, Chris Rock and Gayle King at the party:

Mariah performing:

Great working with these guys year after year and meeting new people.  Hi to Steve and Burl from CNN, James from Access Hollywood, Peter and Talia from Rubenstein, Jamel from wireimage.com, Scott from the Secret Service, and all the Time people (especially Cindy and Greg!),  and of course the wonderful Swarovski sponsors, Kim and Erin.  Here’s a few pics pre-event:

Greg Galant from Time Inc who covered the party for Time:

Cindy Murphy from Time and Bill Shauck, the hit of the night!:

Kim and Erin from Swarovski:

I’ll end on just a couple of personal notes about NY – a city that I’m utterly in love with, partly because lovely unexpected things always happen there.  Post-party I’m piled in a cab with a bunch of Time people headed back to the hotel for the after-party and I sneeze like 8 times in a row.  Everyone says bless-you but I hear a "bless you" from outside the cab — I stick my head out and it’s the cab driver in the cab next to us as we are stopped at a light.  Then I take a bus home to Hartford and at the end (11 pm Friday night), the driver comes on and says in a very soft voice "I just want to wish all the mothers out there a Happy Mother’s Day…and if you are not a mother I still want to say that to all the women because you are all our mothers – the mothers of earth"…and the bus clapped and it was a very sweet moment.

Well at the end of our Route 66 trek was the wonderful wedding of my brother, John, and his now wife, Rei!  It was held at an amazing place right in the middle of Beverly Hills.  We were in the wedding, so I just grabbed some shots as a guest, but here are some favorites:

The rehearsal…John and Rei practicing their recessional:

then it was off to the Tiki Mermaid for a cruise around Marina Del Rey and the rehearsal dinner!

The next morning…Sebbie was the ring bearer … his first tux!

Lori and Abbey:

Our Jude:

Sebbie and Uncle John:

As guests, we actually had to time to stop at the BH sign!

John and Rei’s fun friends:

I really wanted to make a portrait of John and Rei while we were there and we had about 5 minutes…Greystone Mansion had this old gate with perfect light…I love how they turned out!

Right place, right time:

Friends and Family…

Rei, GREAT meeting your family!

A few portraits of my lovely niece, Abbey:

Me, John, Rei and Mike:

I know Rei’s finger looks kind of weird here (let’s just leave it as motion) but I love this shot of them driving away with the light bouncing everywhere:

Well there’s nothing like driving Route 66 from Arizona to L.A. via the Grand Canyon with our 2- and 4-year olds and my parents!  It was an amazing trip and I really got into the groove of it all and could have added a few months onto our 10-day trip which started in Phoenix, went thru Sedona, Grand Canyon, some places you’ve never heard of, Palm Springs, Disneyland, and ended up in  a condo on Venice Beach for my brother John’s wedding.   Here are  a few highlights and I’ll cover the wedding under a separate post:

Sebbie:

Poor Jude!

Here’s the Grand Canyon – Seb and Jude were never let out of the stroller – very little in the way of guard rails:

Here are the deer we saw 20-yards before the edge of the Grand Canyon:

I really love Americana so Route 66 was just so cool to me.  This is The Museum Club in Flagstaff, AZ…Willie Nelson played here in the 70′s for $600:

It’s 6am and we’re up with kids – the light was beautiful:

…a million windmills as we entered Palm Springs…

middle of nowhere:

the ritual of moving every day or two:

Tuesday night we got to shoot the annual fundraiser "Celebraintion" for The Literacy Volunteers of Greater Hartford.  It was a dinner, auction and Scrabble/Sudoku/Crossword-fest and was hosted by Brad Drazen, Morning Anchor of NBC-30.  Here’s a few highlights:

Some serious play:

The corporate sponsors included the guys from Comcast:

Brad Drazen hosted the live auction:

We have a winner!

The Literacy Volunteers are focused on teaching adults to read.  It’s pretty astounding to know that 41% of Hartford residents operate at the lowest level of literacy.  If you are interested in becoming a tutor, donating, or helping out, feel free to them direct or ask us questions.  My husband Mike is tutoring once a week now and loving it!