brian dorsey studios – new york wedding photographer – top 10 in the world – destination weddings

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so what kind of birthday party do you throw when your best friends include Beyonce, Jay Z, and Mary J. Blige?

one with white peacocks in a garden on top of rockefeller center!

620 loft and garden

mary j. blige

Jay Z

and you gotta have a little floor show ….

and you get to have mary j. blige sing you a birthday song… …

Tags: 620 loft & garden 620 loft and garden Beyonce birthday david monn Jay Z mary j. blige peacocks rap impressario solange knowles

Permalink: /index.php/2010/08/24/the-rap-impressario-birthday-at-620-loft-and-garden/

Category: event photography

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.

If there were such a thing as a confectionary heirarchy, I’d have to place things like stale gumball-machine gumballs pretty close to the bottom. Candy dots on paper would have to be a close second. As you slide up the ladder, you pass necklaces you can eat, candy cigarettes (imagine that!?), oatmeal cookies without raisins, and twinkies.

It’s a pretty big middle ground after that (e.g. oreo cookies through godiva chocolates)

Then up near the top, you get into some pretty nice chocolatiers, a few great dessert/pastry chefs, and then the ranks get pretty rarefied.

As you approach the nadir (man, I’ve waited since 7th grade to use that word and, well, there you go), you get the real artistes. They’re so good that english words aren’t good enough – you need to use a french word (it must be a better word, it’s french, no?)

Ron Ben Israel is one of those precious few baker/artistes.

For the 100th birthday of the Plaza, Ron was commissioned to create a cake that was a 6 foot high exact replica of the Plaza. Probably one of the most exquisite confectionary projects ever.

I was honored to have been asked to help document this historic undertaking.

Now, right now you’re thinking, “Well, exact replica is a pretty relative term. The Plaza is a pretty special building. This cake is probably a big beige rectangle with green peaks on top”, right?

Guess again. In his studio, teams of artists labored on the details for weeks. Drawings to scale in the background.

Here’s the man himself, making it all happen.

The finished result was assembled over two days under a tent in front of the Plaza. Here’s the result:

Now would you have the heart to break off a piece and eat it?

That’s sugar!

And to give you a sense of the scale of this thing.

You judge how exact a replica it is….

The proud father….

The festivities were capped off with fireworks by Grucci – set off on the Plaza itself (the real one).

HB, Plaza. Glad you’ll be back in action soon. We’ve missed you.

And of course, if you need a truly exceptional cake, who you gonna call?

The bad part about walking away from corporate life to pursue photography is that I’ll never be able to afford to have Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers play at a party that I throw. The good part however is that I get to photograph parties that others throw where Tom Petty et al are “the band”. sweet.

The good news is that it’s like he’s playing in your living room.

The bad news is that it takes about 60 people a full week to build this living room on your property just for his hour and a half show and you end up tearing it down the next day.

The good part is that you get to see him this close.

Or is that the bad part?

The good news is that he still rocks and puts on an awesome show
.

This past monday found us photographing a benefit for The Orchestra of St. Lukes held at the amazing new Jazz at Lincoln Center space in the Time Warner building. If you have not yet seen a show at the new venue, you should. It’s spectacular. And if you’ve never heard OSL, you should. I was very fortunate to do both simultaneously.

One of the things that makes OSL so outstanding, is that this group of musicians is so passionate about their work – they invest it with such joy – that it really does elevate the pieces they play to a new level. This benefit raised over $1mm for their music in education program.

The orchestra performed for the guests during dessert – who could take in not only the music, but the breathtaking view of Columbus Circle and Central Park South.

Cool, huh?

As the “Architect of Style” for many of NYC’s most over-the-top fabulous events, David E. Monn is the visionary event designer called for when a host wants ultra high-style/sophisticated fantasy.

We’ve been fortunate to have David call us for any number of his fantastic events – fortunately not only because he and his people are so great to work with, but because his events are so visually stunning they are just a blast to shoot.

Apparently the feeling is mutual since when Haute Living Magazine, an ultra-luxury real estate magazine was doing a profile on David and needed images, David suggested that the magazine call us to capture him doing his thing in his environment.

David in his office.

And as he does his thing early in the morning in Manhattan’s flower district.

To read the entire article on David you can visit HauteLiving.com and click on Architect of Style in the Table of Contents.