I mean, really cool. James Bond kind of cool. Or, at least they would be if they hadn’t given me dirty looks all day. Which was to be expected. I was with a person that had unrestricted access to an event that both George W. Bush AND Bush Sr attended.

Yesterday I assisted Kim Case, the wedding photographer I’ve told a few of you about. She was shooting the wedding of the US ambassador to Belgium’s daughter. Also, the ambassador’s wife just happened to be Bush’s cousin.

I got to Kennebunkport Maine around noon, parked in a city lot and wondered around for a bit. At 1:00 Kim and her other assistant for the day Olivia showed up. We headed over to the reception site to take some shots of the table settings, the flowers, etc. The reception was in a huge (circus sized) tent that had been done up to be “cozy and intimate” by turning the tent polls into giant trees and covering the tables with rose pedals and more candles than you could imagine. After that we headed over to where the groom was to take pictures of him getting ready. He was, for lack of a better term, slacking. He wasn’t even near ready so we had to skip him because of time and head over to the bride. At this point I had become “the driver” and I stayed with the car and the equipment all afternoon. I would pull the car to where it needed to be so we could move from place to place nearly instantly. After the bride left for the ceremony, we followed, followed by the Secret Service. We had access to the whole thing so we were waved through check points and allowed to park next to all the Secret Service cars in the private section of the lot. Unfortunately Kim was the only one allowed in side the church so we had to stand by outside. While I was sitting in the car I was able to take a look around and realize exactly how many Secret Service agents there were. There were a ton. They had Coast Guard cutters off shore making sure boats didn’t come anywhere near. There was a helicopter in the air at one point, circling the compound. In the van next to me there were 6 or so Secret Service agents in complete riot/whoop-ass gear. These guys were dressed head to toe in body armor and they carried the always impressive MP5 on they shoulders. These guys weren’t messing around. After the ceremony, everyone came out onto the lawn and picture taking continued. The President left and so did 90% of his Secret Service entourage so things got a little calmer. After the post-ceremony pictures we headed back to the reception site for the actual reception. At this point I wasn’t needed any more so I was able to head home. I didn’t get to see the reception in full swing but I’m told that the bouquet tossing was going to be at 11pm and the “send off” at 1am. I’m sort of glad I wasn’t staying that late.

Things went well assisting wise and I think Kim liked me. She asked me what I was doing the 26th-29th and said she’s email me and we’d talk about it, so that’s a good sign.

That’s about it. My very first assisting job and the president was there. Huzzah. Well, since today is Father’s Day, I’m heading over to our friends the Bossie’s house for a joint father celebration and then over to my uncle’s to visit with them for a while. I was supposed to have plans with Chip this afternoon. He was going to give me a hand with a new hard drive and show me how a DNS redirect thing worked. I guess that it’ll have to wait until Monday. Sorry Chip.

Later.