I finally got to travel out to Hyde Park and Polo Club earlier this week for the Charleston Area Wedding Planners quarterly luncheon. I’ve been wanting to visit this location for quite some time now because I’ve heard so many great things about it. Well it sure lived up to its expectations! A 380 acre estate with polo fields, horse pastures, and a renovated 1880s farm house. I can definitely see the possibilities when having your wedding or big event planned at this location. A beautiful farm that’s just right down the road from Charleston and is really easy to get to! Jerri Heater, who is the event specialist for the property, gave a tour of the facilities while Sarah Coffey from Newton Farms had some delicious food ready for when everybody got back. Greg at Snyder Event Rentals had all of the tents setup and Lisa Thomas from Ooh Events! had such beautiful decor for all of the members to enjoy. Tammy Pilch at Cakes by Kasarda created some yummy little cupcake treats for everyone to enjoy while my friend Bryan Mahanes from Other Brother Entertainment provided some acoustic music with his band that was set outdoors. It was a great event and thanks to Sara Cavallon at Something to Celebrate for organizing everything!

Be sure to view the slideshow below along with some other quick pics! You can find a link to all of the images at the end of the slideshow. (or you can just click here 😉

Earlier last week I got to travel out to the beautiful Middleton Place Gardens for the monthly Travel Council CVB meeting. Since we’ve had a rather warm winter here in Charleston, all of the azalea flowers were in full bloom out in the garden areas. You just can’t get to a more gorgeous and historic location than Middleton Place in the spring time! A special thanks goes out to Ali Bedard who heads up all of the travel council meetings and does such a great job with all of the locations that we get to go to each and every month. We had a special treat with Ann Caldwell and her Magnolia singers, who sang to everyone out in the sundial garden reception area. With rain clouds looming over head, everyone got to go to the reception for a quick bite to eat and then a plantation house tour. If you haven’t been in awhile it’s definitely a place to go during the spring time! So beautiful!

Here’s a few images from the plantation and meeting.

Some highlights of the meeting were award plaques given out to the CADET graduates of the CVB training workshops along with special recognition of Rick Burton of the Greater Charleston Concierge Associations. Rick won for the 2012 SC Hospitality Employee of the Year. Congrats Rick!

This was a quick pano shot of one of the garden areas out at Middleton Place Gardens. This was about seven images all layered together to get a wide shot.

A few weeks ago I got to photograph one incredible 50th birthday party at the Francis Marion Hotel in downtown Charleston. All I know is that when I turn 50, I sure hope my wife will throw me a party like this one! The Joe Clark Big Band (19 piece) was there playing all of the big band songs and everyone was dressed up in their formal attire looking good. It was a sit down dinner with the most unique dance cards at every table. Now that’s something you just don’t see everyday at a party anymore! Sara Cavallon at Something to Celebrate was on hand with her staff and they did a wonderful job planning out all of the details, as always! Happy Birthday David! So glad that I was able to be apart of your special day!

Be sure to click on the slideshow below!

This was a panoramic shot of the interior floor layout.

This was a pic of a delicious looking 7 layer caramel cake that was placed on each table for all of the guests. Chef Debbie Reed from DeClare Cakes did a fantastic job! I was running around working and shooting so much, that I didn’t even get a chance to taste any of it! Ugggh! I won’t make that mistake again! ha ha! A special thanks to my buddy Marilyn Buist for her awesome hand modeling work! 😉

So here’s where I went across the street to test out some of my Radiopopper RF remote receivers for my flashes. I set it up to where David & John would be looking through the windows so that I could remotely fire off my flashes that were inside the building as I was outside standing on some sort of a concrete monument. (whatever it takes to get the shot, right?)

Just click on the slideshow below!