#Beach Elopements in Miami Beach

[miamibeachweddingcenter]

Finding the Best Wedding Package That Accommodates Your Spending plan and Needs

Getting ready for a wedding is difficult. There are numerous things that you want to deal with particularly in the event that you don't have a wedding organizer to take care of you. Additionally, financial plan is another significant variable that is the essential worry of couples in getting ready for this unique occasion. Obviously, being viable we as a whole need to reduce our costs or track down the best South beach wedding packages administrations and sellers with the least expensive or generally reasonable deal.

A wedding bundle is the thing most couples are thinking about what it comes to wedding arrangements. There are many wedding organizations that are presently offering bundles that are finished, reasonable and give accommodation to the lady and man of the hour.

A bundle generally comprises of an organizer, scene for the wedding service and gathering, a wedding photographic artist, flower vendors, enrichments, cake, vehicles for lady of the hour and husband to be, cook. A few bundles are adaptable and you can demand for extra administrations like hair and cosmetics specialists, and DJ.

In picking a bundle, you ought to initially consider what sort of wedding you and your accomplice need to have and how much is the financial plan. Then, at that point, search for wedding organizations that proposition bundles and afterward analyze the costs. One benefit of getting a bundle is that you don't need to meet a ton of merchants since you can now track down them in a single spot. Wedding organizers restrict with vendors to give you the best cost for a comprehensive wedding bundle. This can be extremely advantageous for prospective marry couples.

Prior to finalizing the negotiation, with a wedding organization or facilitator, ensure you pose all inquiries connected with the wedding bundle advertised. Look at their past clients to guarantee you got a confided in wedding organization. You ought to likewise realize exceptionally significant subtleties remembering additional charges for overabundance hours for involving the setting or extra expense for abundance in number of visitors.

Now and again, the bundles offered rely upon the season. There are months where extraordinary limits or free administrations or things are given, for example, free cake, free wedding solicitations, free wedding picture taker barring the photographs, free suite for lady and man of the hour and numerous others. In this way, look at all wedding bundles prior to settling on what wedding bundle to pick.

For more details, visit us :

Affordable beach weddings fort lauderdale

Miami all inclusive wedding packages

Cheap miami wedding packages

[give-me-a-movie-camera]

I was watching I Love Lucy on Pluto TV last night and it completely slipped my mind that yesterday marked Desi Arnaz’s 106th birthday.

His was a classic Riches-to-Rags, Rags-to-Riches Cinderella tale. Desiderio Alberto ‘Desi’ Arnaz y de Acha III was born 2 March 1917 in Santiago de Cuba, Oriente Province, Cuba, the only son of wealthy landowner Desiderio Alberto Arnaz y de Alberni II (a prominent Cuban politician, who, to date, was the youngest mayor of Santiago de Cuba from 1923 to 1932) and his wife, Dolores ‘Lolita’ de Acha y de Socías (one of the most beautiful women in the Caribbean, the daughter of a businessman, one of three founders of Bacardi Rum Limited, the world's largest privately-owned spirits company). Desi was of the small but vastly privileged, upper-class y de Acha, the descendent of Cuban nobility of whose colonial ancestors originated from Santander, Provincia de Cantabria, Cantabria, Spain. (His grandfather, Dr Desiderio Alberto Arnaz y Alberni I, was assigned to the first United States volunteer cavalry in Cuba, the ‘Rough Riders’ under the leadership of ‘Hero of Cuba’ Theodore Roosevelt during the Spanish-American War on 1 July 1898. To legend, they sieged San Juan Hill on horseback, and though the forged conquest did not belong primarily to Roosevelt, for the conflict was an integrated effort between the white volunteer regiment and the 1,250 black Buffalo Soldiers, the famed battle gained Cuba her independence from Spain—a victory for the people, the Cuban people).

At the height of the Cuban Revolution of 1933, Desi and his family were forced to flee their Motherland, leaving their riches behind. Following a brief election, the government collapsed with the removal of President Gerardo Machado y Morales from office in August of 1933. The opposing anarchists seized all political leaders and stripped them of their power. Among them, Desi’s father, imprisoned by the regime, before his brother-in-law, Alberto de Acha, intervened on his behalf, thus making his escape to Miami, where he was to remain in exile. Having lost their holdings to the rebels who confiscated their property (their palatial home, a cattle ranch, two dairy farms, and a vacation villa on a private island in Santiago Bay), his father sent for Desi and his mother, who took refuge in Key West, Monroe, Florida in 1934. When Desi washed upon the shores of the Americas, his father had established an import-export company, where the family of three took up frugal lodgings in the company warehouse and dined on cans of cold beans. Desi came to live in New York City and Los Angeles for about one year, where he tightened his belt for survival and scrambled for employment as a struggling musician. Following an engagement as a guitar player for a Latin-American band at the Roney Plaza Hotel in Miami Beach, and a cursory stint with the Xavier Cugat Orchestra in 1937, he made his Broadway debut in the Rodgers and Hart musical Too Many Girls, where he reprised the role for RKO's major motion picture of the same name in 1940. During the course of filming, he fell head-over-heels for the Apricot Queen, Lucille Désirée Ball. The couple eloped on 30 November 1940 in Greenwich, Fairfield, Connecticut. By 1949, at the age of thirty-two, Desi established himself a renowned nightclub entertainer as conga-playing band leader for the travelling self-titled Cuban orchestra.

Most Hollywood buffs would do well to remember the Power Couple formed by Desilu Productions—a celluloid empire built on the backs of Lucy and Desi’s American Dreams, despite the public scandals and tumultuous marital woes. But at the crowning glory of their golden existence, there are those who neglect Desi's legacy and his reluctant resignation to his fate as the Man Behind the Curtain, to remain in Lucy’s shadow so long as he lived. Lucy, of whose celebrity distinction was of higher standing than her husband’s. Desi, though undoubtedly talented, who was not exempt from the unjust ostracization and societal prejudice that plagued him as a Cuban Spaniard immigrant in racially-charged Hollywood. For those who clutched their pearls at the prospect of Middle American households who might've dismissed acceptance of the world’s first interracial couple on television, Lucy and Desi defied those expectations and dissolved racial barriers in an era dominated by cultural strife. Audiences of all races, colour, and creed came together to shower the Ricardos with adoration and praise, because they came to understand the Ricardos epitomized the human experience, no matter that they didn't reflect the typical post-war domestic demographic. Against all odds, the world fell in love with the All-American Ricardos… white, Hispanic, or otherwise. Lucy and Desi, to be envied by all... America's Sweethearts.

On his 106th birthday, we remember Desi for the pioneer he was, as the Mastermind behind the nation’s most Beloved Redhead.

Behind every great woman lies a greater man.

Perhaps Desi speaks for us all when he declared his everlasting love, in his own words... ‘I Love Lucy was never just a title.’

💓 Happy Heavenly Birthday, Desi.  💓

       𓆩♡𓆪 · ・ 𓆩♡𓆪 · ・ 𓆩♡𓆪 · ・𓆩♡𓆪 · ・ 𓆩♡𓆪 · ・

[melissamontoyaphotography]

Mission Beach San Diego Wedding Photos | P + A

Mission Beach San Diego Wedding Photos | P + A As a San Diego elopement photographer, it’s no surprise I have photographed a lot of beach weddings! San Diego is a destination for many couples looking to say “I DO” with their toes in the sand! You can pretty much do it all year too! We aren’t tropical weather like Miami, but we do have pretty nice weather throughout the year. Locals take…

[beachwedding011]

Affordable wedding packages in miami are ideal for beach weddings in florida. We arrange the best event management and wedding decorations service.

florida beach wedding packages, get married in florida, beach elopement, florida destination weddings, places to get married in florida, all inclusive small wedding packages florida

[themindofa-misfit]

when you get me,

you get him. 📸

when you get him,

you get me.

Meet my fiery second shooter for most weddings and the man behind a few of these honeymoon photos from earlier this year, hehe

best time ever at @kudafushimaldives

[the-pale-goddess]

Seconding the ask who said your their fav. Your characters are beautiful and your style is the best. Happy ever after weddings and domestic stuff is not my jam. Your fics are god tier angst and smut. Tiffany forever!

You're all too kind to me, I’m getting my month’s worth serotonin dose today 🥺❤️

I can’t even begin to explain how much it means to me that you enjoy my writing style and the characters I created. My stories aren’t exactly fandom mainstream, so the fact that there are people who still want to read this word vomit makes me extremely happy and motivated to continue delivering some alternative to fluff 💗

Thank you for taking time to write this message, thank you for sticking around with E&T - you’re the real MVP ❤️

[openheartfanfics]

And they went on Vacation...

Ethan x F!MC

Back To The Roots - @gryffindordaughterofathena ☁📱📷 Ethan takes Diana on a surprise trip.

Berceuse - @utterlyinevitable  ☁🎄 They go to the Poconos for the weekend but things don’t go according to plan.

Bonne Année - @genevievemd 🌟📷 It’s Ethan and Gen’s first New Year’s as an offical married couple, and he surprises her with a trip to Paris to celebrate

Part 2

Cape Cod - @jamespotterthefirst ☁ His pregnant wife is a tad bit uncomfortable at the beach and Ethan is willing to do anything to help. Feat. The Gang

Cariño - @jamespotterthefirst ☁ After their confessing their feelings to one another, everyone can see something has changed.

Change My Plans - @perriewinklenerdie ☁ Eager to not have to hide his feelings for Claire and get away from it all, Ethan organizes a trip for them.

Contained In Water - @schnitzelbutterfingers 🎭 With two weeks left to the unfortunate fate of Edenbrook Hospital, Abby wants a much-needed break, and he has just the right idea.

Countdown - @potionsprefect ☁🎇 Victoria and Ethan count down the New Year in Dagger Mountain.

Golden - @writinghereandthere ♥ Ethan and Mariana head south of Italy for a holiday getaway, and.. enjoy themselves...a lot.

“I think in every reality, I still find you.” - @genevievemd ☁ They’re in Paris.

Fragment - @rookie-ramsey 🎭 Ethan and MC spend the night at a ski resort, courtesy of a rich patient. A catastrophe ensues.

Impromptu Vacation - @storyofmychoices ☁ Ellie and Ethan take a trip to a secluded beach as a way to help Ellie continue to process her emotions away from the triggers of Boston and the hospital. T/W character with PTSD/Survivors Guilt

La Ville d’Amour {The City of Love} - @genevievemd ☁ The first part of Ethan and Gen’s Parisian vacation. AKA When they secretly elope.

Lover - @genevievemd ♥ Ethan spends the evening worshipping his wife on her birthday.

Madison - @potionsprefect 📷 Victoria and Ethan head to Madison for a staycation.

Madison - @potionsprefect ☁ Ethan and Victoria head on holiday to Connecticut.

Miami Getaway - @jerzwriter ☁ Ethan and Casey take a desperately needed vacation, but the green-eyed monster keeps visiting Ethan.

Miss Tiffany Turned 30 Today - @the-pale-goddess ☁ Tiffany celebrates her birthday with Ethan.

My Funny Valentine - @genevievemd 💘 Genevieve and Ethan spend Valentine’s Day away from Boston, to rekindle their romance.

Paint By Numbers -  @lahamseiroshoe 📚 *mini* Ethan surprises MC with plane tickets.

Part One

Paradise - @starrystarrytrouble ☁ What made Ethan finally confess his feelings?

Plans For Paris - @genevievemd ☁ Gen makes one final suggestion for their planned trip to Paris, and Ethan agrees.

Resolutions - @genevievemd 🌟☁ It’s New Year’s Eve 2020, Ethan and Gen spend the holiday on a romantic getaway. Where they both make secret resolutions.

Return to Dagger Mountain - @liaromancewriter 🦚 Cassie whisks Ethan off for a romantic weekend, much to his discomfort and surprise.

Road Trip - @socalwriterbee  ☁ Ⓜ After many postponements, Ethan and Tessa are finally going away for the weekend.

Road Trip Ready - @blazerina ☁ MC begging Ethan for something he doesn’t want to give in to.

Soulmates - @starryeyedrookie ☁ Ethan realizes that he’s found his soulmate.

Part 1  |  Part 2

Summer Hideaway - @jerzwriter ☁ Kaycee has had an exceptionally rough week. That's when her secret boyfriend, Ethan, comes up with a plan to help them both recoup.

Sunshine & Sea - @potionsprefect ☁ Victoria and Ethan head away before they start their new roles

The Cabin - @takeharryandgo ☁ Naveen's lakeside cabin holds a special place in Ethan and Meredith's lives.

The Mountain Between Us - @queenbirbs ♥ In which the return to Edenbrook doesn’t go as planned, or: Ethan and Sloane get the hell out of Dodge Boston.

The Talk - @genevievemd  ☁ Ethan and Gen discuss their future while at a conference in Miami.

Travel Delays - @jerzwriter ☁ Casey & Ethan argue over where they should go on their first vacation together.

Twenty Questions - @genevievemd☁ Gen makes Ethan play “20 Questions: Wedding Edition” while they drive to their weekend getaway to Montauk, NY

Warm Comfort - @potionsprefect ☁🎇 Dagger Mountain provided a perfect place for just the two of them.

What Happens in Venice, Stays in Venice - @starryeyedrookie ♥

When in Rome - @coffeeheartaddict2 ♥ Casey and Ethan are on their honeymoon on the Amalfi Coast in Italy.

Winter Wonderland - @trappedinfanfiction 📷☁ Ethan is taking Celia away on a small winter vacation.

_

SUBMIT OPEN HEART FICS & WRITERS HERE

[targaryenkaz]

Twelfth work for @klaroline-events​ bingo

Prompt: Spring Break

Caroline was a big believer in the work hard, play hard philosophy. It’s why she decided to go along with one of Katherine’s schemes for once and go full college girl cliché and go to Miami for Spring Break for her senior year.

 There were body shots and beach parties and all kinds of debauchery but for their last night in the fancy hotel Katherine paid for, though even Elena has no idea where she got the money, at the upscale restaurant bar. A girl’s night to cap off a highly successful, sex-filled spring break.

 At the bar, after a laugh-fuelled dinner, Caroline meets Klaus, a visiting businessman, so he says. She planned on going back to her table only to see Kat had eloped to a corner booth with a dark-haired gentleman, Bonnie was doing that arguing-flirting hybrid thing she does with some tall guy and Elena was giggling on the phone with Damon. Bunch of traitors. Still, one drink with a handsome stranger can’t hurt.

 Except it can when he’s charming in kind of a dickish way, but honest about it. When he seems genuinely interested in what you have to say and doesn’t look down on her dream-career of being a party planner like a lot of people do. When he’s engaging to listen to as he tells her about things she doesn’t know, but not in a preachy condescending way.

 She very badly wants to take this night to its natural conclusion, but this week was all about no-strings-attached fun and already she feels a little attached. It would do no good. She knows the sex would be fantastic, she has a sixth sense about these things. But she goes to school in Virginia, he lives in Louisiana. There’s no point in getting attached.

 Acknowledging all that still doesn’t stop her heart from giving a little leap when Klaus gives her a lingering kiss goodnight and slides her a card. “If you’re ever in New Orleans, call me. I think I could put your spring break to shame.”

[iandeleonwrites]

Ian’s Case: A Personal Statement for Grad School Admission

Personal Statement, Ian Deleón

“He felt something strike his chest, and that his body was being thrown swiftly through the air, on and on, immeasurably far and fast, while his limbs were gently relaxed.”

It was more than a decade ago when I first read those words. Written by the American author Willa Cather, Paul’s Case: A Study in Temperament has always felt to me like an intimate account of my own life penned by a woman one hundred years in the past. 

That is a feeling which makes me proud; that my personal whims, fears, and desires, could find their echo long ago in a story about a young man and his pursuit of a meaningful life. Because of it, I felt a pleasing sense of historicity at a time when I was struggling so much with my own. 

I grew up in Miami Beach. Literally not more than a block away from water for most of my life. My father had emigrated from Cuba with his family in 1980. My mother had come on a work visa from Brazil a few years later. They met on the beach, had an affair, and I came into the world in May of 1987. 

My life was marked with in betweenness from the very beginning. My parents’ relationship did not last long, so I grew up traveling between houses. I had two families. I was American, but I was also Cuban and Brazilian. I even have a Brazilian passport. I spoke three languages fluently, but I couldn’t dance salsa or samba. I felt at home with the working class immigrants and people of color in my neighborhoods, but I often had to work hard to prove I wasn’t just some gringo with a knack for foreign tongues.  

[A quick note on Paul’s Case––If it happens that the reader is not familiar with the short story, let me briefly summarize it here:  A disenchanted youth in turn of the century Pittsburgh feels increasingly alienated from his schoolmates, his teachers and his family. His only comfort is his position as an usher at Carnegie Hall, where he loses himself in the glamour of the art life. Having no drive or desire to become an artist, however, the dandy Paul makes a spur of the moment criminal decision and elopes to New York City. There, he is able to live out his fantasies in a financial masquerade for about a week’s time, until the authorities back home finger him for monetary theft. Learning that his father is en route to the city to collect him, Paul travels to the countryside and flings himself in front of a speeding train, musing about the elegant brevity of winter flowers.]

When I first encountered Cather’s short story I was blown away by the parallels I saw between my own life and Paul’s. In 2005, fresh out of high school, I was living mostly with my father as my mother had relocated to faraway West Palm Beach. I was an usher at the local concert hall, a job I cherished enough to volunteer my time for free. I became entranced by the world of classical music, opera, theater, and spectacle––often showing up for work early and roaming the performance spaces, probing high and low like some kind of millenial phantom. 

In school, however, I had no direction, no plan. I had good enough grades, but no real motivation, and worst of all, I thought, no discernible talent. I probably resented my father for not being cultured enough to teach me about music, theater, and the arts. No one in my family had ever even been to a museum, or sat before a chamber orchestra. And it didn’t seem to matter to them either, they could somehow live blissfully without it. 

Well I couldn’t. I began to mimic the fervor with which Paul immersed himself in that world, while also exhibiting the same panic at the thought of not being able to sustain my treasured experiences without a marketable contribution to them. But here is where Paul and I take divergent paths. 

I was attending the Miami Dade Honors College, breezing my way towards an associate’s degree. I took classes in Oceanography, Sociology, Creative Writing, Acting and African Drumming. I was experimenting and falling in love with everything. 

But it was my Creative Writing professor, Michael Hettich, who really encouraged the development of my nascent writing talent. Up until that point my ideas only found their expression through class assignments, particularly book reports and essays on historical events. My sister had always felt I had a way with words, but I just attributed this to growing up in a multicultural environment amongst a diversity of native languages.  

As a result of that encouragement I began to write poetry, little songs and treatments for film ideas based on the short stories we were talking about in class. Somehow, thanks to those lines of poetry and a few amateur photographic self portraits, I was admitted to the Massachusetts College of Art & Design for my BFA program. 

There, I attended classes in Printmaking, Paper Making, Performance Art, Video Editing, and Glass Blowing. I was immersed in culture, attending lectures and workshops, adding new words to my vocabulary: “New Media” and “gestalt”. I saw my first snowfall. I had the dubious honor of appearing at once not Hispanic and yet different enough. I was overwhelmed. I felt increasingly disenchanted and out of place in New England, yet my work flourished and grew stronger. 

It was during this time that I developed a passion for live performance and engagement with an audience. I also worked with multi-channel video and sculptural installations. Always, I commented on my family history, grappling with it, the emigrations and immigrations. I even returned to those early short stories from Miami Dade, one time doing an interpretive movement piece based on The Yellow Wallpaper. Most often I talked about my father. He was even in a few of my projects. He was a good sport, though we still had the occasional heated political disagreement. We never held any grudges, and made up again rather quickly. It would always be that way, intense periods of warming and cooling. A tropical temperament, I suppose. 

I continued to take film-related classes in Boston, but my interests gradually became highly abstracted, subtle, and decidedly avant-garde. I had no desire to work in a coherently narrative medium. This would eventually change, but for now, I let my ambitions and aspirations take me where they would. 

I returned home to Miami for a spell after graduation. I traveled the world for five months after that. I moved back to Boston for another couple of years, because it was comfortable I suppose, though I was fed up with the weather. 

Finally, I wound up in NYC. Classic story: I followed a charming young woman, another performance artist as luck would have it, a writer too, and a bit of an outsider. We were quickly engaged and on the first anniversary of our meet cute we were married on a gorgeous piece of land in upstate new york, owned by an older performance-loving couple from the city. Piece of land doesn’t quite do it justice, we’re talking massive tracts, hidden acres of forest, sudden lakes, fertile fields, and precocious wildlife. As they say in the movies, it really is all about location, location, location. 

Nearly all of our significant personal and professional achievements in the subsequent years have centered around this bucolic homestead. After meeting, courting, researching and eventually getting married there, we soon decided we would stage our most ambitious project to date in this magical space––we would shoot...a movie.

We hit upon the curious story of an eighteenth century woman in England called Mary Toft. Dear Mary became famous for a months-long ruse that involved her supposed birthing of rabbits, and sometimes cats. The small town hoax ballooned into a national controversy when it was eventually exposed by some of the king’s physicians. My wife and I were completely enthralled by this story and its contemporary implications. Was Mary wholly complicit in the mischievous acts, or was she herself a sort of duped victim...of systematic abuse at the hands of her family, her husband, her country? 

We soon found a way to adapt and give this tale a modern twist that recast Mary as a woman of color alone in the woods navigating a host of creepy men, a miscarriage, and a supernatural rabbit. 

Over the course of nine months, our idea gestated and began taking the form of a short film screenplay. This was something neither of us had done or been adequately trained to do before. But we knew we wanted it to be special, it was our passion project. We knew we didn’t want it to look amateurish––we were too old for that. So we took out a loan, hired an amazing camera crew, and in three consecutive days in the summer of 2017 we filmed our story, Velvet Cry. It was the most difficult thing either of us had undertaken...including planning our nuptial ceremony around our difficult families. 

It was an incredible experience––intoxicating––also quite maddening and stressful. But it was all worth it. Because of our work schedules, it took us another year to finish post production on the film, but throughout that process, I knew I had found my calling. I would be a writer, and I would be a Director. 

Perhaps I had been too afraid to dream the big dream before. Perhaps I had lacked the confidence, or simply, the life experience to tackle the complexity of human emotions, narratives, and interactions––but no longer. This is what I wanted to do and I had to find a way to get better at doing it. 

In the intervening months, I have set myself on a course to develop my writing abilities as quickly as I could in anticipation of this application process. I know I have some latent talent, but it has been a long time since I’ve been in an academic setting, and in any case, I have never really attempted to craft drama on this scale before. 

I’ve read many books, listened to countless interviews, attended online classes, and most importantly, written my heart out since relocating down the coast to the small college town of Gainesville in Central Florida with my wife in June of 2018. It was through a trip to her alma mater of Hollins University that we learned about the co-ed graduate program in screenwriting a few months ago. After all the debt I accrued in New England, I didn’t think I would ever go back to college, though I greatly enjoyed the experience. But what we learned about the program filled me with confidence and a desire to share in the wonderful legacy of this school that my wife is always gushing about. 

Our Skype conversation with Tim Albaugh proved to be the deciding factor. I knew instantly that I wanted to be a part of anything that he was involved with, and I had the feeling that my ideas would truly be nurtured and harnessed into a craft––something tangible I could be proud of and use to propel my career. 

I continue to mine my childhood and adolescence in Miami for critical stories and characters, situations that shed light on my own personal experience of life. I’ve found myself coming back to Paul’s Case. No longer caught up in the character’s stagnant, brooding longings for a grander life, I’m now able to revisit the story, appreciating the young man’s anxieties while evaluating how it all went so fatally wrong for Paul. There was no reason to despair, no cause for lost hope. I would take the necessary steps to become the artist I already know myself to be. The screenplay I am submitting as my writing sample is a new adaptation of this story, making Paul my own, and giving him a little bit of that South Florida flavor. 

I will close by reiterating how I have visited Hollins, and heard many a positive review from the powerful women I know who have attended college there. As a graduate student, I know Hollins can help me to become a screenwriter, to become a filmmaker. This is the only graduate program to which I am applying––I have a very good feeling about all this.

I want to be a Hollins girl. 

[casitaola]

Hey everyone. We are a creative multi-talented married couple that enjoys challenging ourselves to work together and create with our common and differing interests. Over the years, this has included a range of projects from re-arranging our home spaces to directing fashion shoots, and yes, even shooting/directing/styling/catering and producing our own elopement ceremony. Check it out, https://youtu.be/UcB3IGlt8Sg Our latest project is the complete redesign and renovation of our new home together, our first as home owners. And we’re here to share all the details of our triumphs, & hopefully few failures along the way. Finn, my husband, is a Photographer/Entrepreneur, that until recently, had been running his own printing company in the Arts District of Wynwood in Miami. I’ve been dividing my time between NY & Miami, Wardrobe Styling for well over a decade, working on TV commercials, editorials & e-comm projects. We decided to pack it all up & move once again. After having lived along the water for years in Long Island & Miami, we knew we wanted our next place to be near the beach. Our dream, to build our own home fusing together our interests and the best of previous ocean city homes. California was the natural choice with all its industry and sunny surf, and Malibu was our dream location. Little did we know how difficult to attain that would prove to be out West. The LA metro area was never a consideration for us since we were already coming from the hustle & bustle of two major cities. The plan was always to be a bit farther out and be able to catch a surf session or a hike. All a key part for our work/life balance plan. To start, we ended up renting in Malibu for a few years. Pretty quickly on this journey we knew that Malibu was for us! Unfortunately, we also quickly discovered how unrealistic it was to actually find anything suitable for our 2 person(& a dog) family near the water. Or so we thought. At a dinner party one night, a neighbor mentioned the neighborhoods of Point Dume Club & Paradise Cove as possible options for us in Malibu, and they weren’t McMansions. At first, I was like “hmm, mobile home neighborhood?!” Back East, the mobile home communities are rarely anything to be desired. We were skeptical, but decided to look further into it. After seeing a few places & how special these 2 neighborhoods really were, the stigma vanished. I was blown away by what other families had turned these once, mobile homes, into hip and magnificent beach style homes. First we looked at Paradise Cove, which is located in a cove adjacent to the beach & next to the famed Restaurant of the same name. The neighborhood included a mix of families, surfers and celebrities like Stevie Nicks, Matthew McConaughey & Betsy Johnson, just to name a few. Unfortunately, Paradise Cove didn’t have anything available at the time we were looking so we moved onto Point Dume Club. We truly fell in love right from the moment we passed through the gates and saw the street lined by the tallest California fan palms, silhouetted by the blue ocean backdrop. It was like we were driving into a secret beach loving club. All the homes were different, but there is still a cohesive sense to it all. Some of the homes were older & others fairly new, some with mountain and canyon views. Others with ocean views & even some with no view. We looked at all 3 of the available homes at the time. We chose ours the first few minutes of looking at it. It needed to be totally remodeled, but the potential was obvious to me. The price was right for us & it had an unobstructed view of our dream - the ocean! With 2 other families at our viewing at the same time, we made our offer before days end. Malibu is a hot area, we just knew it would not be available if we waited. Our instincts were right! Our offer came in right before another. The sweetest elderly couple that lived in the home, chose us before any other offer because the homeowner said she saw a sparkle in my eye, like the one she once had before they bought their dream home. She just knew that the life that would live on in her old home, would be appreciated. When I heard that story, it melted my heart & we felt like it was all meant to be! Please follow along while my husband & I take on re-designing our dream home, our way. #casitaola #homewithaview #oceanicliving #californiadreaming #malibu #designyourownway #homebythesea #coastalliving #designtherapy (at Malibu, California) https://www.instagram.com/p/B9SOAnghkF8/?igshid=1ewrbh3qt7y1r

[sandrachile]

Ethical, Christian, and unpredictable Destination Wedding | St Louis MO

Pua + Corey

I started 2018 writing down a business bucket list.

There were a few things I wanted to accomplish, and every year I feel like materializing these wishes on a paper. It somehow helps me remain focused.

The bucket list included weird (for you) things:

A Christian wedding.

A destination wedding (hopefully at the beach).

A shoot or wedding in Miami.

And a shoot with someone whose first language was not English.

I was blown away when, the following week, someone contacted me for an engagement session in Miami and I shot their engagement in my most favorite urban place in the world: Wynwood. And as an amazing bonus, I also shot a photography session at the Miami ice Cream Museum, which was in their last week (ever!).

While in Miami I received an email from Pua and Corey.

Pua is the youth pastor at a church in the suburbs of St Louis Missouri, while Corey worked at the Dream Center, a Christian ministry in the heart of Saint Louis Missouri, bringing hope to one of the poorest neighborhoods in the country. Their intimate destination elopement in Florida sounded amazing! and was answering to 2 of my bucket list goals at once. WOAH! Lucky me!. And as I began to learn about Pua and Corey, I fell in love with them more and more.

Their passion for social justice and their ethical heart… The secluded private residence where the wedding was going to be, with a ceremony right in the sand!? Oh em gee! This was going to be the wedding of my dreams!

But Michael had another plan….

Hello I’m Michael, and I’m here to wipe everything down…

A month before the wedding, the panhandle area of Florida, where (for a year!) Pua and Corey had made arrangements to get married, got a non pleasant visitor: Hurricane Michael, leaving all their planning in ruins on the beach.

[insert all the crying face emojis here]

Now, they were faced with a new decision:

To move the wedding to their hometown? (and therefore to plan a whole new wedding in a month!)

or

To move the wedding date? (which involved postponing all their upcoming plans, including the honeymoon)

[I swear, I witnessed this part of their journey with panic attacks….]

But there is a bible quote that says

"“Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done.”"  -- Philippians 4:6-7

This piece of the Bible has nothing to do with God himself, but more with our attitude and how we behave in relation to God. It calls us to be positive and optimistic, to have an attitude of thanksgiving despite the circumstances.

And it reminds us to be faithful, that nothing is too big or small to ask God for. And to acknowledge that God cares for us, and will help us feel at ease.

Pua was freaking out, and rightfully so! To put together another wedding in 30 days was nuts! And not to mention, expensive! But her and Corey faced this challenge by practicing their religion, and did what their beliefs commanded: they prayed.

There were safety concerns in regards to getting married at the original location, so Pua and Corey decided to move the wedding to St Louis instead, and here is where their people said “we got ya” and their community stepped in to help. Meanwhile, I re-routed our airline tickets to the Bible Belt, and recruited my good friend Jenni to help me in a wedding with a whole different scenario.

Wedding in St Louis:

The ceremony ended up being at Pua & Corey’s church, run by none other than the teens Pua is a pastor for. The ceremony was performed by a (really funny) relative. The dinner was held in the church basement. And then everybody moved to a barn that someone from the church let them borrow so they could all go dance, and long story short, everybody offered what they could to make the wedding happen.

The night that changed my life….

At the end of the night, Pua and Corey themselves helped us pack leftovers for homeless (first time a couple engages personally with this process), and let me tell ya, that night changed my life…

After every wedding, Nick and I averagely distribute around 20 to 24 meals in downtown Pittsburgh, but St Louis was different, and the reality I witnessed there shocked me.

On our first stop, I shared over 60 plates of food. Corey and Pua were nice enough to not only donate the wedding day leftovers, but they also went above and beyond to save the extra food from the rehearsal dinner.

The homeless situation in Pittsburgh, is way different than St Louis. Here I usually get asked for a cigarette, but in St Louis I got asked for basic things, such as water and blankets.

I saw so many homeless people there, it was heartbreaking. People of color, Asians, and white people. Women, teenagers, elderly, and disabled people.

I’m not gonna lie, I felt disappointed in St Louis….

In Pittsburgh, homeless people are a direct result of the opioid crisis, but in St Louis, it seemed different (out of the 80 people we fed and saw that night, I did not see one who was intoxicated or visibly high). My short stop through St Louis changed my perception drastically. There is so much need around us, and we are so so privileged, but I feel lucky that out of all the weddings that take place in the world, I get to serve people like Corey and Pua, who took time out of their own wedding to share what they had and how they could.

How did this wedding produced social impact?

The wedding of Pua and Corey was crazy, it was beautiful, ethical, full of intention, spiritual, and impactful.

Pua gifted her bridal party leggings from Girlfriend Collective, a size inclusive brand that, through ethical manufacturing, uses post-consumer water bottles extracted from the ocean to produce their leggings.

Corey and his wedding party opted for to use something they already owned (and will continue to wear).

The couple skipped on the favors, instead, they donated that money to the relief efforts of the Hurricane Michaels.

They intentionally payed to rent real plates/glasses at the reception to avoid generating plastic cups/paper waste.

Avoided straws.

The leftovers from the wedding day fed 45 people, while the leftovers from the rehearsal fed 40 to 50 more, giving us a grand total of almost ONE HUNDRED PEOPLE, whom 4 days before Thanksgiving were in the streets, hungry, cold, and trying to sleep under the rain, but we reminded them that THEY MATTER TOO. Overall, this wedding changed my life and pierced my heart like no other before, and it was the perfect reminder that no matter how much we want to stay to ourselves, we are meant to live in community, we need them, and others need us as well.

Special Acknowledgement:

[therebelwrites]

Singer Joyce Bryant was born Ione Emily Bryant in Oakland, California on October 14, 1928. She was the third of eight children.  Her parents were Whitfield Bryant, a railroad chef and devout Seventh-Day Adventist, and Dorothy Green Withers.  She was raised in San Francisco, California but at 14 Joyce eloped and annulled, and she quickly moved to Los Angeles in 1942.

At a night club that allowed audience tryouts, Bryant sang “On Top of Old Smoky,” her first public performance, and was offered payment and a two-week contract at $125 a week. In 1946, after four years of building her career, Bryant because of her voice and her appearance became the “Black Marilyn Monroe,” “the Bronze Blond Bombshell,” and “the Voice You’ll Always Remember.”

In 1952, Bryant became the first black entertainer to perform at the Hotel Algiers’ Aladdin Room in Miami Beach, Florida. Despite her fame and talent, Bryant was constricted by the same segregation laws as black menial employees. While she could perform at Algiers, the New York owners refused to allow her to spend the night at the hotel or be photographed outside the Aladdin Room.

There was violence while she toured the South; the KKK burned an effigy of her, and in an interview, she discussed how she felt unsafe in Alabama because of lynching. Despite this, she performed at other prominent entertainment venues including Manhattan’s Copacabana in 1953, Hollywood’s Coconut Grove, the Chicago Theater in Illinois, and Harlem’s Apollo Theater all in 1955. She was also one of the few black entertainers to appear in major magazines.  Life magazine, for example, profiled her in 1953. By the mid-1950s Bryant was the first dark-skinned black woman to be a national sex symbol. By that point she made approximately $150,000 per year.

In an era before on-stage pyrotechnics and hydraulic tricks, female vocalists had two weapons to hold audience attention: talent and glamour. Joyce Bryant delivered both in abundance. Her silver-tinted hair startled audiences almost as much as her low-cut, skin-tight gowns by pioneering African-American designer Zelda Wynn Valdes (who would ultimately become the designer for the Dance Theater of Harlem for nearly three decades from its 1969 inception). ��At once carnal and classic (such as the sheath at left, spun from 14k gold fabric), Zelda's creations perfectly mirrored - and fueled - the duality of Bryant's elegantly-torrid stage persona.    So tightly gowned that she had to be carried onstage, Joyce would violently slash and punch at the air with her arms - hence the nickname: "Belter Bryant!"  It was as if she was fighting something...  and indeed she was.*

Outspoken on issues of racial inequality, in 1952 Bryant defied Ku Klux Klan threats as the first black entertainer to perform in a Miami Beach hotel-nightclub (then a key prestige stop on the winter nightclub circut that was entirely off-limits to black performers). *

Her stage personality and career were provocative and exciting. Her dresses, made primarily by Zelda Wynn Valdes, an African-American designer, were revealing and so tight supposedly she had to be carried off stage when finished. Her hair was painted silver and her sultry voice and sensual songs such as “Love for Sale,” and “Drunk with Love” captivated club audiences but were banned from radio play.

Bryant saw her guest appearances deleted from Hollywood films, her recordings shelved and her money pocketed by unscrupulous management.* In 1955, her career abruptly ended. After a performance she was physically assaulted because she refused sexual advances. The incident soured many of her fans and tainted her provocative public image. She also abused prescription pills in order to sleep, her hair was damaged from intensive coloring, and she had to resort to wigs after a disastrous bleaching. By the end of 1955 when her multiple performances had exhausted her throat, a doctor suggested spraying cocaine to soothe the pain even though the procedure might make Bryant addicted. Her manager urged the doctor to do it regardless of the risks or Joyce’s feelings. At age 28, Bryant walked away from her entertainment career and enrolled in Oakwood University, an historically black, Seventh Day Adventist college in Huntsville, Alabama.

In the 1960s, Bryant returned to the stage.  Now under the training of Frederick Wilkerson of Howard University, she sang opera. She worked as a vocal instructor and periodically performed with the Watergate Symphony in Washington, D.C., the New York City Center Opera Company and various European opera companies.

Within a decade, Bryant had reinvented herself a decade later as a trained classical vocalist.  After six years of study with instructors from Howard University, she won a contract with the New York City Opera, touring internationally in lead roles with such co-stars as LeVern Hutcherson, Florence Henderson, Ricardo Montalban and Avon Long.  She later became a vocal coach of note, working with such diverse artists as Phyllis Hyman, Raquel Welch, Michelle Rosewoman, and Jennifer Holiday.*

Today, the “Lost Diva” lives with Alzheimer’s and is taken care of by her niece Robyn LaBeaud.

Often woefully miscategorized as a "quitter," extensive research uncovers a rather different tale of a woman who succeeded in reinventing herself as an artist on her own terms - refusing to be a victim of the entertainment machine.*

*Source: JoyceBryant.net

[beachwedding011]

Since 2010, we have married and renewed vows for over 1,000 couples Whether you’re looking for a local wedding venue or planning a destination wedding, start with a wedding package, or build your own ceremony, add our signature Beach Bites reception or a private dinner for 2 on the beach. A beautiful way to start your lives together. Ideal I Do’s is here to make your South Florida beach wedding dream a reality. Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Palm Beach, Naples and Orlando are locations we serve. beach wedding destination, Wedding venues at the beach, wedding destination, places to elope in florida, wedding destination

[girls-can-get-married]

Italian Brides Miami Beach Elopement - Taste of Tuscany in Florida from Laura Memory Videography on Vimeo.

[the-pale-goddess]

Ethan & Tiffany: Endgame (HC)

A quick reminder: I've rejected canon Third Year completely, so mind that none of OHTY bs happens in my E&T canon timeline.

A/N: I tried my best to write every major fact down - hopefully the final product isn’t too messy or too boring, I’m new to the headcanon business and this isn’t even written in the headcanon form because I’m a rebel lol

Huge thanks to the lovely Anon who requested this HC and every single one of you still interested in E&T’s shenanigans, your support is the greatest gift I could ever receive! If you have some more specific questions about these two, feel free to hit my askbox anytime 💕

Now let’s check what’s in store for Tiffany and Ethan!

Children

Neither of them planned children in their lives; they were perfectly comfortable in the relationship they had—living together, advancing their glittering careers while supporting each other, slaying the game as the ultimate power couple.

But life has its ways, of course, and a week prior to their third anniversary Tiffany found out she was pregnant. The news sparked blind panic in the 30-year-old doctor; she thought her whole world fell like dominoes. Tiffany wouldn't intentionally start a family: she'd just started turning her dreams and plans into reality and she didn't even consider herself fit to be a mother (even though deep down she craved it).

She'd spent an entire week full of doubts, listing all her options, before she finally shared the news with Ethan. His reaction was surprisingly calm, considering his stance on having children. Based on the evidence gathered throughout the week, he'd already suspected pregnancy and did some calculations on his own.

They both agreed it wasn’t the best time—their busy schedules didn’t allow them to even reconsider the concept of starting a family. Nevertheless, the baby was coming, and their hearts filled with strange excitement. Having a baby on board seemed surreal at first, but after the dust had settled they felt oddly content about the unforseen circumstances.

E&T's world turned upside down the second their son was born. Raising a child happened to be the greatest challenge these two brilliant doctors had encountered. Luckily, they both relish a good challenge. Guided by the unexpected overflow of affection, they quickly settled into the alien routine of parenthood.

Nathaniel Jonah (also known as NJ, Nate) turned out to be a perfect blend of his parents' most prominent features & traits: Ethan's ocean eyes and stubbornness mixed with Tiffany's smile and warm heart.

Three years later, another surprise awaited. The most shocking thing about the second pregnancy was that it didn't happen sooner (they'd been exceptionally careless). Nicolette „Letty”, a spitting image of her mother, stole Ethan's heart from the start, bringing even more joy to their controlled chaos.

The fancy condo was too small for a family of four, so The Ramdams were forced to find a new home. They moved to a dreamy house in the Boston suburbs merely a month before their daughter was born.

The third one (for a change) received a proper invitation to this world. Tiffany wasn't the biggest fan of the idea of having another baby, but her window was closing (she was 38) and Ethan's palpable excitement tipped the scales. Everyone jokes Aine must be adopted because she's the most unproblematic angel, unlike her parents.

The family wouldn't be full without pets: Nettie (British Shorthair cat) & Hopper (English bulldog).

Marriage

Marriage was never on their agenda. Neither of them felt the need to make their relationship formal, it wouldn't change anything between them—they were already acting like a married couple. Both Tiffany and Ethan think there are more valuable symbols of love than some paper signed in the presence of everyone they know. Partnership they were in seemed like the most comfortable and obvious choice.

The topic resurfaced with the pregnancy news. Our good guy Ethan, our Mr Must-Do-What’s-Right, proposed to Tiffany on their third anniversary dinner, right after they discovered they were expecting. He did it because it made sense. Because it was convenient. Because it was a decent thing to do.

But guess what...Tiffany rejected the proposal. She didn’t want to marry out of obligation. If they were really going to jump into marriage, she wanted it to matter. Ethan understood her point of view, though it didn't stop him from jokingly annoying her on every given occasion that she rejected him.

He waited two years before popping the question again. This time she said yes.

Dr. Grumpsey was willing to agree on a lavish wedding if Tiffany would insist. Lucky for him, his woman hates big, conventional weddings and all that unnecessary attention around the reception. They're both very private people, so they planned the wedding they were actually excited about.

They eloped to Miami where it all started, exchanging vows to the accompaniment of the ocean waves, with little NJ by their side. The wedding reception was just three people enjoying their day at the beach.

As you may suspect, their friends and family flew into a rage when they found out the wedding took place behind their backs. Jackie's death threats were particularly disturbing, so E&T decided to throw an afterparty for their loved ones only.

Career

Tiffany saw her future in diagnostics and followed that path, balancing her personal goals with striving for improvement in patient care. The word about her accomplishments with one of the best diagnostics teams spread fast; shortly after her challenging yet successful residency, Doctor Addams quickly proved to be one of the most valuable and respected diagnosticians—not only at Edenbrook, but also statewide, and later nationwide. She cracked some of the toughest, most hopeless cases, saving lives of many patients considered lost causes.

During her first pregnancy, her career was already on high speed and the situation made her even more determined to keep it that way. She didn't want to sacrifice her newly established position and Ethan did everything he could to support her and her career development.

She remained a vital part of Edenbrook's Diagnostics Team under Ethan's leadership for a few years. Their minds combined gave spectacular results and above it all they truly enjoyed working together. However, when Letty was born sharing responsibilities at home and managing the time got significantly harder. With minimal hesitation, Ethan decided it was his cue to leave.

He'd been thinking about the change for much longer than he was willing to admit: over the years he'd accomplished everything he could dream of and Edenbrook had become more of a duty than a challenge. So he quit, leaving the team in the most capable hands of Doctor Addams-Ramsey.

For a year and a half The Ethan Ramsey was a stay-at-home dad, juggling family, research for his second book and setting up his clinic with none other than Tobias Carrick.

Ethan wasn't 100% convinced if starting the practice with Tobias would be a wise move, but the clinic exceeded his expectations. Apart from the great sense of accomplishment, he finally gained full independence at work. And there were no bloody interns to babysit anymore.

When little Ramdams got older, he approached Tiffany with a job offer; the best diagnostician in the country was the last missing link in his clinic. She let it marinate for a few years and accepted the offer at the launch of her second book, soon after Letty's 18th birthday.

____

If there’s a typo or a mistake somewhere...No, there isn’t kgjdkgjdk

Thanks for reading 🥰 I have a few exciting fics in the making (both AUs & canon) and I hope I’ll be able to finish them soon!

[zoekravitz88]

The interview for The Style: Sitting opposite Zoë Kravitz is like looking directly into the sun. On set in Paris, the 29-year-old model-actress-singer is in full promo mode, rattling through all the beautiful products she likes to use on her beautiful face: YSL Beauté Couture Brow on her eyebrows, YSL highlighter over her cheekbones, YSL Touche Eclat around her eyes, though nothing on the cluster of freckles over her nose, which look as if they have been hand-painted by tiny elves. Was there ever going to be another genetic outcome for the only child of Lisa Bonet and Lenny Kravitz, one of the most absurdly good-looking couples of the late 1980s? For a few bright, shining years, they rolled around town dressed up like a pair of fabulous vagabond art teachers: Lenny with his soul patch and polonecks, Lisa in her top hats and micro-sunglasses. In 1987, when they eloped to Las Vegas on Lisa’s 20th birthday, Lenny was still a struggling musician known professionally as Romeo Blue (then later, unofficially, as “Lenny the Loin”), but Lisa was one of the most famous women on the planet, thanks to her role as Denise Huxtable in The Cosby Show. “I guess my mom taught me how to use make-up,” Kravitz says in her surfer-bro drawl. “She wears very light make-up — she would teach me stuff.” She doesn’t flinch when asked about her parents for possibly the thousandth time in her career. In fact, in person she is pretty much exactly what you’d expect if you put Lisa Bonet and Lenny Kravitz in a blender: half bohemian Californian wood nymph, half sassy showman. Kravitz has been acting since her late teens, nailing the box-office hits (X-Men, the Divergent series, Mad Max, Fantastic Beasts), picking some good indies (the critically acclaimed Dope), and most recently starring in the A-list foie gras that was Big Little Lies on HBO. And ever since accompanying her dad on the odd front row as a teenager, it’s the fashion world that has been obsessed with her. She has been signed up for ad campaigns for Coach, Calvin Klein, Alexander Wang and Tiffany, and now she is an ambassador for YSL Beauté. She gets the rigmarole of it all (conversation veers between make-up tips and the benefits of a Trump news diet), but she is engaged and articulate. Minus the occasional slip into LA therapy speak (a lot of talk later about “energy” and “community”). To be fair, she grew up in the patchouli-scented enclave of Venice Beach, before moving to Miami to live with Lenny at the age of 11. Her parents split up when she was two. “It was kind of hard having to go, you know, months without seeing one parent. I actually think it would have been great to be in a situation where you can see someone at the weekend,” she shrugs. “But the grass is always greener, I guess.” Ah yes, the Lenny the Loin years. For a time, there was a revolving door of A-list girlfriends — Vanessa Paradis, Natalie Imbruglia and Kylie Minogue, and brief engagements to Nicole Kidman and Adriana Lima. But there’s no squirming or glibness about it from Kravitz. She is cheerfully self-aware of her parents’ colourful pasts. When a TV host asked what it was like to be reunited with almost-stepmom Kidman on Big Little Lies (“She was always so, so nice to me — I hadn’t seen her since I was 13”), she whooped with delight at the presenter’s suggestion that her father was the perfect rebound after a marriage to Tom Cruise. She has even had a laugh about #penisgate — that moment in an otherwise uneventful (probably?) summer in 2015 when Lenny ruptured his tight-tight leather trousers on stage in Stockholm and momentarily broke the internet. Kravitz uploaded a screenshot to Instagram of a conversation with rocker Steven Tyler’s daughter, Chelsea, and a withering monkey-covering-its-face emoji. Father and daughter are clearly very close: she joined Lenny on tour for a year when she was 13, which sounds like a unique experience for a teenage girl, I say. “It was definitely an experience. I was the only kid [on tour], so, um, being surrounded by nothing but adults as a kid is always kind of a bizarre thing.” In Miami, she attended a top private school, where she was one of the only black girls in her class. She rattles off the memory: “It was pretty hard for me just because, you know, I wasn’t comfortable in my own skin, and I hadn’t found like-minded people, so I felt like a freak.” Meanwhile, the house had drop-in guests including Stevie Wonder, Mick Jagger, Tyler and her godmother, the actress Marisa Tomei. Kravitz and I meet in January, a few weeks after the Golden Globes, when the first wave of Time’s Up activism has kicked into gear. She signed her name on the official petition and wore black in solidarity (strapless Saint Laurent). The elephant in the room is that the projects she will be promoting this autumn both have some pretty clanging #MeToo moments, as both Johnny Depp, her co-star in Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, and James Franco, who stars in the indie sci-fi thriller Kin, have faced criticism. How does all this sit with her? Does she feel the need to research people before she says yes to things now? “Of course, but that has always been the case. Now it’s different because we have more information. Like, I didn’t know about A, B and C before, and now I do.” She stops to think. “But I do believe in second chances, depending on who it is — obviously someone like Harvey, no, never again — but you know, there are people who make mistakes and, not that it’s excusable, I don’t want to feel like there’s a separation between men and women.” She sighs. “I don’t know, man, like, I hope that no one is wrongly accused, but a rich white man in America being wrongly accused, welcome to the club. You know how many black and Latino people are wrongly accused and put in jail all the f****** time? So,” she gives a bitter laugh, “that’s life.” Speaking of proper, non-famous life: she has spoken candidly before about her teenage struggles with anorexia and bulimia that lasted well into her twenties. Where is she at now? “I went to therapists, I took all kinds of stuff, but what really made me stop was just being tired of being sick and having this secret, and all of that. It’s exhausting, that need for control or going to throw up, and I felt it in my body.” What does recovery look like for her now? “I definitely still have moments of, ‘Oh my God, I look fat, I gained 4lb.’ I do that to myself and it’s so stressful…” She trails off. “The struggle continues for me. It’s not like I’m completely cured and never think about my weight at all. It’s just about perspective, it’s, like, I want to be happy. Being thin doesn’t make me happy, being hungry doesn’t make me happy, compulsively checking my weight doesn’t make me happy.” So, what does make her happy? “My friends, my family, food makes me happy, that’s the thing, I love cooking so much,” she laughs. “I’m not an organised cook. I have no idea what I’m doing and it’s a mess. My dad was saying the other day, ‘You don’t know what you’re doing, but you put love into the food, and you can tell.’ ” Her parents seem to have nailed the Gwyneth-and-Chris model of post-divorce equanimity: Lenny still describes his ex-wife as his “best friend”. Lisa has been with Game of Thrones actor Jason Momoa since 2007, with whom she has two children. They’re all one big, blended family, appearing on red carpets together and sharing family selfies on Instagram — Lisa and Lenny attended the Met Ball together in 2015. Zoe and Momoa even have matching tattoos, and she named her band, Lolawolf, after her two half-siblings. She now lives with her boyfriend of 18 months, the actor Karl Glusman, who was in Tom Ford’s Nocturnal Animals. Is it the first time she has moved in with a boyfriend? “It’s not. It’s the second time,” she giggles. “It didn’t work out the first time, so…” (That would be with Penn Badgley from Gossip Girl.) “But it’s great.” The couple live in Brooklyn, of course, and hang out with a group of fellow Very Cool Indie Types — Alia Shawkat of Arrested Development/Search Party fame and Ilana Glazer of Broad City are two of Kravitz’s best friends. Filming on Big Little Lies will continue through summer, then she is “leaving things open” after the show. She reclines on the sofa on set and gets going on another good speech: “The whole idea of celebrity is bizarre, but I think what it can do is remind people they’re not alone in the world. You know, being alive is scary, so I just want to be a reflection of another being out there, figuring it out too.” Zoë Kravitz is the make-up face of YSL Beauté