Sucré & Honey

The other weekend, Jose and I went to the album release show for Sucré in LA, and it was one of the best nights I've ever had! In case you haven't heard, Sucré is Stacy King of Eisley, with Jeremy Larson and Darren King. They make the most gorgeous music, with ethereal vocals, lush strings and unique beats. When I first saw that The Honey Trees were opening for Sucré during our spring break, I knew I had to get tickets to what was sure to be an amazing night of music. We got very lost on the way there, and I thought we weren't going to make it in time, but boy am I glad we finally found it. The show was at The Bootleg Bar, which was a pretty nifty venue; when we walked into the lounge area, They Live was being projected on the wall, which Jose was pretty excited about. Then we found out that there was a good old fashioned photo booth, so you know what we had to do.


Lovely girls in pretty dresses! The Honey Trees played a few very new songs, which was so wonderful and exciting. I can't wait until they record their new album; seven songs is just not enough for this gal anymore! After their set, we got drinks (wine in a plastic cup, woohoo classy!) and wandered over to the merch table, where we got to meet the fantastically adorable Elsie Larson! We were lucky enough to talk with her for a little while, and Jose thought she was the greatest ever (she is!). She's so sweet, it's crazy. I probably gushed, but hey, you probably would too, she is one of the very coolest blog ladies around! I wish I would've asked to take a photo with her but I forgot, and she was busy selling things anyway. I bought the Sucré album and some of the photo prints of Stacy taken by Elsie. Then I got to chat with the lovely miss Becky Filip for a while about The Honey Trees hopefully recording pretty soon, which makes me one happy (and impatient) camper.


Sucré was so good live! Stacy sounded absolutely beautiful, she makes everything sound effortless. Jose and I agreed that Jeremy is a musical genius (and we still talk about it every time we listen to the album); he can play every instrument masterfully! One of the coolest parts of the whole set was when he played piano and a drum at the same time. Darren is so fun to watch as well; I love love loved all of the percussion! I felt really lucky be in the audience, it was such an awesome experience. There is a very nice review of the show with far better photos than mine over here. Ahhh, it was so so fun!


Eek, flash! I don't know why I always feel like I'm smiling really big in photos, while I actually barely look like I'm smiling at all. Maybe it has something to do with standing next to Jacob's extreme smiley face? Oh well, I was really happy, I swear!


This video isn't from the show we attended, but you should watch it anyway because it's my favorite song of theirs and it's so good! I just noticed this right now but I am almost certain that Katie of Skunkboy Creatures is one of the backup singers in the video.

Rock N' Roll Las Vegas Day

I'm so excited to finally share our Las Vegas photo shoot! We were lucky enough to be taking our Las Vegas vacation while the lovely Kat Williams would be there as well. When I let Kat know that we'd be around, she emailed me to tell me that her friend Lisa Devlin would be in Vegas as well, and she wanted to know if Jose & I would like to do a couples shoot. Lisa is one of the top wedding photographers in the UK, and I absolutely love her photography, so the answer was pretty darn obvious! On our last full day in Vegas, we popped over to the Luxor to meet Kat, Lisa, and Lisa's awesome assistant, Amy Bartlam. I'm always a bit nervous to meet up with super cool people, even if we've already hung out before, but it was so great to see Kat again, and I was definitely jazzed to meet Lisa and Amy for the first time. Jose was nice enough to volunteer to drive, and we all headed out to find the perfect desert location.


Once we found the right spot, a lovely bit of landscape with a mountainous background and a few scattered joshua trees, we got out and took a walk. There were a couple of older guys parked next to us, and once we got out to the place where Lisa wanted to shoot, they started walking over to us. I was getting ready a few feet away, but one of the men started talking to our group. He had obviously been drinking, would not stop talking, and eventually started getting a bit rude, though Lisa politely explained that we were trying to get some work done. The other man never said a word, but followed his companion around everywhere he went.


The guy was pretty annoying and he never did stop bugging us, but we got on with the shoot, and all drunken babbling aside, it was really a good experience. Lisa was wonderful, and very encouraging. I always feel incredibly awkward when having my picture taken, especially full body photos... I never know what to do with myself! But Lisa really put both Jose and I at ease, and made us feel comfortable in front of the camera. I did an outfit change (in the middle of the desert, haha), and then came the fun of setting up the sparkly curtains Lisa had brought to use in the photos. Amy and Kat were fabulous assistants! The lovely photo above is by Amy and the one above that is courtesy of Kat's phone. Yay, pinkies!


I love Kat's Instax Mini pictures! I seriously have to get one of those this year, I've wanted one for so long.

The final photos turned out to be jaw-droppingly amazing! Lisa performed some serious photo magic, and we are head over heels in love with them. Here are just a tiny sample of some of my favorites...


Of course the above three photos, as well as the very top photo are credited to Devlin Photos. To see the rest (and there are lots!), you simply have to check out the blog posts at DEVLIN PHOTOS and ROCK N ROLL BRIDE (there are different photos on each of those posts). Also, you can find more behind the scenes photos on these posts from Kat and Amy.

As we were getting ready to drive back to The Strip, Lisa and Amy were making a video diary about the shoot, while Jose, Kat and I were waiting in the car. The drunk guys got back in their car and turned it around to face our car, which was really creepy. Then the rude guy got out, took a huge swig of champagne or whatever he was drinking, got back in the car and peeled out, coming really close to running Lisa and Amy over. Way to drink and drive, dudes!


After that adventure, we drove back to town, and eventually we ended up at the Hard Rock Hotel, where Jose, Kat and I had a few drinks. We met up with Lisa, Amy, and their friend Nikky for dinner and a bit of gambling. On the elevator, Jose convinced a few hardcore Mötley Crüe fans who had just come back from a concert that he had never heard of the band before, as we headed up to check out Lisa and Amy's super swanky hotel room before saying goodbye for the night.


Thank you so so so very much to Lisa, Amy, and Kat! I'm so glad everything worked out so that we were able to have this great day with such a wonderful group of people. We had the best time, I just wish it could have been longer! We were thinking pretty seriously about heading to the UK this summer to visit but since we just moved to a nicer place and have been buying a lot of things for it, unfortunately it's not really practical at this point. But next summer will be our 5th anniversary (crazy!), and I think our original dream honeymoon destination would be a pretty good place to celebrate it, right? I think it needs to happen. I miss everyone already! Until then, here's the video I made of our trip so I can at least relive it a bit.

Adventures in Las Vegas

So this is way late, but I'm finally getting around to sharing our Las Vegas photos from way back in February. This is part one, and I'll be doing a separate post with the video I put together and our Rock 'N Roll Bride adventure and photo shoot with Lisa Devlin because there are a whole lot of photos from that day alone. It's been so long since we went, I've kind of forgotten exactly what we did on each day, oops. I do know that we packed at the last minute (I brought along my copy of Rock'N Roll Bride Magazine for Kat to sign, which ended up being kind of a pain because I didn't want to bend it so I had to carry it around everywhere), and we flew in late Friday night. As soon as we made it to our hotel and got checked in, on the way to our room, my backpack's zipper burst open and my camera fell onto the floor, breaking my brand new 50 mm lens apart. So for the rest of the trip, we were stuck with my crummy kit lens that barely works on any setting. Thankfully, the camera itself wasn't damaged, but since the lens is such a bother, we didn't take many pictures at all.


For our first full day in Vegas, we walked to the Venetian and wandered around inside for a while. I bought those huge macarons from Bouchon Bakery that I get every time I visit. I'll be darned if those things didn't last for about a month still tasting awesome. Forgive me, but this is mostly a bunch of food pictures, since for some reason that is what we photograph when we go anywhere. The view from our hotel room balcony was pretty neat.


That night, we went to New York, New York and had dinner at Gonzalez Y Gonzalez (I'm sensing a repetitive name theme here). Then we went to one of the little bars overlooking the casino. We did a tiny bit of gambling, but there are few things in the world that make me more nervous, so we didn't go too overboard, though I know Jose could have sat there all night.


The following day was our meet up with Kat, Lisa, and Amy, so I'll talk about that in the next post. The day after that was the day we had to fly home, so we hung out with Kat for a little while at the Caesar's Palace Forum Shops and got to meet the wonderful David McNeil. We said our goodbyes and had a sort-of lunch at Serendipity 3. I say sort-of because it was definitely more of a snack; mine was the kind of "lunch" that responsible adults don't consider lunch. A pretzel and ice cream has plenty of the food groups, right? I told you this post was all food!


We walked so much during this trip! I think we walked up and down the strip about six times. Plus Jose caught a pretty bad sore throat and cold during the time we were there, so though we had a lot of fun, we couldn't wait to get home and rest. Vacation can be pretty exhausting sometimes. Come back for Vegas Part Two tomorrow!

Cupcakes in March

A few weeks ago, we visited Enjoy and I brought my copy of Zooey Magazine, since Kevin and Amber hadn't been able to get ahold of a copy. We got to sit around and talk to Kevin for a while, which was really nice, and of course we got some delicious cupcakes (including two mini flights, but don't worry, I gave one of them to my mom, I didn't hoard them all). I had a regular sized Tangelo Chardonnay, and Mr. Hater of Cake Jose got a regular Bailey's Chocolate Mousse, which he said he liked pretty well for not liking cake. He also had a glass of wine though, so he was happy. Then Kevin headed off with the fabulous cupcake trailer to the "Modern Family" wrap party (isn't this picture of him ridiculously awesome?).


Going, going, gone! Last weekend we went to get a couch I found on Craigslist from Solvang, and we passed Enjoy on the way back home, but actually didn't stop in since we needed to get the truck we were borrowing back to its owner... it did not feel right at all.