highlights: a sample of our winning work with David Monn

For those of you not familiar with the event design world, David Monn is widely considered to be THE Event Planner for high-style high-end events in New York. He’s the force behind the Met’s annual Costume Institute Gala, the Guggenheim’s International Gala and the New York Public Library’s Lion’s Dinner as well as many other noteworthy events. David’s work really defies description with the possible exception of the word, “grand.” (and I don’t mean the hundreds of them that go into these spectacular events.) Ok, perhaps, “visionary” would work as well.

For the last couple of years, I’ve been fortunate to have been selected by David to cover most of his events. His clients are always wonderful and it’s always such a privilege to work with him and his amazing staff. Whether it’s a society wedding, a private dinner at a penthouse overlooking Central Park or a private concert for 500 close friends (including local celebrity favorites Mayor Bloomberg and Howard Stern as well as a few international heads of state) it’s always something stunning.

Recently David won BizBash’s New York Event Style Awards’ Best Overall Event Decor, Best Non-Profit Event Concept and Best Tabletop Design for one of the events we worked together – The 2008 Guggenheim International Gala.

In homage to Frank Gehry, David did the entire decor of the main room in cardboard. Only David Monn can make cardboard look stylish. The ceiling was waves of long strips of corrugated cardboard resembling the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao.

He also won Best Entertainment Program / Concept for another event that I shot for him, The Plaza Hotel’s 100th Birthday celebration.

For this huge red carpet event with everyone from Mayor Bloomberg to Martha Stewart turning out, David had Grucci wire up the entire facade of the Plaza hotel with fireworks. And if that wasn’t enough, David had my good friend, Ron Ben-Israel make an amazing cake – a 6 foot high replica of the hotel itself.

Which you can see in detail on our blog archives.

Actually, you can see a huge sample of the work we’ve done for him on the David Monn website.