A Private Birthday Party at Mt. Ida Farm

A Private Birthday Party at Mt. Ida Farm / Jul 06, 2012

We don’t usually get an opportunity to photograph a birthday party, but this weekend-long celebration was too big (and way too much fun) to go without documenting it. So we headed off to Mt. Ida Farm on a recent Saturday, plus a couple of surrounding properties to capture all the festivities. Bill hit the beach early in the morning to see party guests arriving for a little lake time (and given this heat, it was a welcome treat!) While several massage therapists set up shop in individual tents adjacent to the shore, the leader of the Seal Team PT arrived with a small contingent of instructors from Richmond to give everyone a great morning workout and some team-building fun in the sun and surf (as much as a lake can have surf, anyway). It was so much fun for everyone, Bill later joined the Seal group for weekday workouts at O’Dark Thirty in Charlottesville and is enjoying his daily butt-kicking.

Later that afternoon, we both were at the farm to document the arrival of guests for a 50th birthday party that evening. It seemed just a little too standard to merely bus everyone to the barn for dinner that evening, so Crystal Whitaker, planner extraordinaire with The Event Company, managed to find five hot air balloons to transport guests from a nearby farm to Mt. Ida’s event barn. You could not have wiped the huge smiles off everyone’s faces as they disembarked from the baskets that evening as the warm sun slowly set. We’re including today only some fab detail shots with just a few people shots out of respect for the family’s privacy, but rest assured they were all having a blast that evening.

Mt. Ida Farm has some of the most amazing views in Albemarle county, and the rustic barn is perfect for private events including weddings. We can’t wait to shoot there again!