Montecito Country Club

Mendy Meeks and Stuart Stoll
Friday September 21st
2007

Mendy and Dr. Stuart were married Friday before last.

The wedding was at the historic Montecito Country Club - what a great place to get married! Nestled into the mountains above the Santa Barbara coast. I guess it must also be pretty good for golf because Bill Clinton and the secret service were playing the day before.

Mendy and Dr. Stuart are such talented and generous people. They have style, taste and a wonderful grace about them. We were honored to be selected to photograph their amazing wedding and so pleased that they found the time to celebrate with us at our own wedding. They have become more than just clients - we call them friends.

The Country Club provided the extraordinary wedding coordinator - Annie Napier. She took care of everything including the bonsai tree favors, 100 living butterfly's, and pouring rain that showed up an hour before the outdoor ceremony. She has a great personality and is more than accommodating but most of all she is totally competent. She ran that show with precision and never seemed to be out of step. I would trust her with my mother.



The dress was magnificent! Debbie Milisci, the Bridal Salon Manager at the Costa Mesa Saks Fifth Avenue was so knowledgeable and kind. She is another great Mendy find.



Mendy's mom Samantha gave a gift of sentimental toys from childhood. She then sat back wiping away the tears of joy. I love this picture.



The fellas.



Check out Stuarts' ring. It's made like a watch band. I love it!












Right out of a romance novel!



Beautiful Bride.



Just a peek at the gorgeous details and amazing reception rooom.



What a great couple.

Zen Todd is a Movie Star

Well, not really but I used to do a little professional acting.

A short movie called Red Chalk directed by Oscar nominated director Matthew Patrick and starring yours truly is premiering at the Laemmle's Playhouse 7 in Pasadena at 11:45 A.M. this Friday thru Sunday for Academy Award Qualification. Call the theater directly at (626)844.6500.

I have an awesome wedding this Saturday but I'll be present at today's showing and also Sunday.

I hope to see some of you there!

Wedding Close to Home

Even though our website says Lenore and I are already married we actually celebrated our official marriage two weeks ago! We are still recovering from the complete excess of joy. Our favorite people came from around the World to spend a few days celebrating together. We also just missed the 110 degree heat wave that thankfully passed the week before our perfect celebration.

Having been to hundreds of weddings we are deeply intimate with the process and we wanted to make sure we didn't fall prey to the common stress-falls. So we made sure to have fun and be relaxed with the results and not stress over little details. It worked as planned. Our wedding day truly became the most amazing celebration of our lives. It started in the morning and lasted all night and into the next morning. Thanks to all that came to spend time with our family - we are forever grateful.

We also want to throw out a few special thanks. Bob and Gail not only personally attended our celebration but their incredibly successful family owned company www.bobgail.com provided and delivered all of the comfy lounge chairs, linens and all of the high end wedding stuff that made it look like we spent a lot of money. Big thanks to Jason and Joe who handled the cooking - the food rocked. Although our Zen Todd studio photographers, husband and wife team Jim and Natalie took the majority of the photographs they were supported by guest photographers - Jerry and Tammy Swanson of www.swansonphotographs.com. Our studio cinematographers Bjorn and Grant also rocked so big thanks guys.

Again, Dorrie the cake lady made another work of art - www.cakeartist.blogspot.com

Of course Lenore's sexy dress was a monique lhuillier masterpiece.

Thanks to everyone for your generosity and love. Our family feels warm all over.

Wedding images are coming soon but here is our favorite engagement image.

Engagement image taken by Zen Todd studio photographer Nora Bohanon

Four Seasons - Beverly Wilshire

We shot an amazing wedding this weekend. Yvette and Shant looked fantastic!

This wedding was truly a work of art. The details were handled perfectly by Brian and Katie at www.bobgail.com

The ceremony location was visually stunning. It was at the historic First Congregational Church of Los Angeles followed by non-stop joyous dancing for 450 guests at the Beverly Wilshire - Four Seasons





















When the images are finished I will place a link on this post so keep checking back. If you want to be notified automatically by email look for the email sign up on the blog. Signing up is completely confidential and you will only receive an email whenever something is added to my blog. You will not be spammed:-)

Congratulations Yvette and Shant!

Diane and Saunter Wedding

What a great day! Everything was beautiful at the Ritz in Pasadena - just for Saunter and Diane.












When the images are finished I will place a link on this post so keep checking back. If you want to be notified automatically by email look for the email sign up on the blog. Signing up is completely confidential and you will only receive an email whenever something is added to my blog. You will not be spammed:-)

Santa Fe, New Mexico - Wedding

Gene and Melodie rock!

On the most sought after wedding day in history -07.07.07 - they took us to the fantastic town of Santa Fe and showed us a great time. From 10,000 feet hot springs to the famous red and green chilis - Santa Fe was rich with history.

After acclimatizing to the elevation, spices and beauty we had the immense pleasure of photographing a unique ceremony and celebration at the Loretto Chapel

What more can you ask for as a wedding photographer - beautiful people, beautiful church and a beautiful town.

Like I said - Gene and Melodie rock!















Check out their slideshow - it also rocks:-)

Zen Todd is a Green Wedding Photographer

As some of you may know we travel to our weddings in a small RV (Mobile Photo Studio-MPS for short). This technique has proven to be an amazing asset. Even on local LA weddings we travel the night before to avoid any traffic issues. It insures our 100% dependability and my personal sanity. Nothing is more stressful than being stuck in traffic on the way to a wedding. Nothing is more relaxing than enjoying breakfast at the hotel where the wedding couple are getting ready. It's a perfect situation:-)

The MPS allows us the freedom to offer incredible deals on destination wedding photography. In fact we charge the same price with no hotel or travel fees from San Diego to Napa. We even include Tahoe for no additional cost to the wedding couple. This helps our clients afford our creative fee when we help lower their bottom line:-)

For the sake of comfort - our MPS has a Tempurpedic bed www.tempupedic.com, facilities, full electricity, on roof A/C, and a host of other amenities - not the least of which is a wireless high speed internet connection. We love it!

Now the best part - the MPS is Green. We run biodiesel - an American grown soy bean oil. Our RV burns a lot cleaner and the exhaust smells like ...not much!

We get our green fuel delivered to our house by Standard-Biodiesel Standard-Biodiesel.com They are a great bunch of guys, ex-movie and TV gaffers that have changed their lives to support the concept of "GREEN" fuel. They deliver biodiesel to many of Hollywood's movie studios and directly to our house in the Hollywood Hills. We store the non-hazardous green fuel in a 55-gallon steel drum. Obviously we are forced to supplement with petrol diesel but we always start out on 100% B99 biodiesel. Our RV runs cleaner and it makes a small contribution to our planet. It's pretty cool.

Green Wedding Photographer anyone?

Wedding at the South Hills Country Club

Nick and Brenda were married at the members only South Hills Country Club www.southhillscountryclub.org. Beautiful day, great space and cool people. Here is the slideshow. More images to follow.

Poker w/ the Worlds best Wedding Photographers

Friday night was poker night at my buddy Jason O'hare's house in Redondo (he is also my main lead photographer and a big wig at Pictage.com). It was definately a who's who of wedding photography. Out of 16 players most of them were wedding photographers. Including -

• Sara France www.sarafrancephotography.com

• Pepper Nix www.peppernix.com

• Mike Colon www.mikecolon.com

• Becker www.thebecker.com

• Zen Todd www.zentodd.com - myself of course :-)

Becker plays a lot and he actually won an online tournament and was awarded a free $10,000 entry fee into the World Series of Poker www.worldseriesofpoker.com/ -World Championship No Limit Hold'em Main Event in just a couple of weeks. Needless to say he is the poker big dog.

I played conservatively making it to the final 8 table with only 2500 chips. Mike Colon, a smart player himself, had about $12,000 and Beker was big chip leader with about $15,000. I was little stack for sure. However, about 10 minutes into the game I slow played a flush into a monster stack against Becker and now I was back in the game. I won't bore you with all the details but I finished the game 3rd and in the money. Becker was second losing to a heavily inebriated Reina - Jason's soon to be lovely wife. She was a tricky call.

Good times!

Huntington Library - Engagement Photographs

Xinmei and Jeff are a great couple. At around 2 on a Tuesday we met at the Huntington Library www.huntington.org. We had a great time just hanging out in the gardens - relaxing into a gorgeous photo session.

Check out the slideshow - for more photographs.