Live Event Paintings

I paint oil paintings, live, at wedding receptions and events, anywhere in the world. Click my profile to find my email, or call (206) 382-7413.

Tuesday, June 30, 2015

The Grooms of June at the Fairmont Olympic

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The Victor-Barnes Wedding, The Fairmont Olympic Hotel, Seattle
TheFairmont Olympic Hotel is the grandest old hotel in downtown Seattle, housed in an Italian Renaissance edifice with marble clad lobbies, Corinthian columns, and vast, ornate ballrooms. The Garden Room is the centerpiece of these gathering spaces, with double height windows rising above the hedges of the motor court.
The gentlemen who chose this place to exchange their vows are lovers of the arts, and I was pleased to have been among the evening’s artistic offerings.
Upon entering the lounge, guests lined up to have custom poetry written on the spot by Typing Explosion, a performing trio in the guise of mid-century secretaries. The nostalgic song of their typewriters was accompanied par excellence by the Seattle String Ensemble, and dancers emerged from the shadows, choreographed by Rainbow Fletcher.
The grooms with flower girls
At the end of the cocktail hour the violins went down, and the convivial voices rose. But suddenly the crowd hushed, as Jennifer Krikawa, an operatic soprano, began—mezzo piano— to call them to form a ribbon- lined aisle.   She sang from both the standard opera repertoire and Broadway show tunes. I got a little verklempt at Somewhere There’s a Place for Us from West Side Story; later a Mezzo joined her for the famous Flower Duet from the opera Lakmé, by Delibes.  As an avocational tenor myself, I was in heaven.  
During dinner the grooms and their flower girls found time to stand for quick portraits, and the painting was done by the time the dance troupe returned to pull them onto the dance floor with white feather boas.