It's a good thing to have connections. Just ask the powers that be at the Buffalo Bayou Partnership. They've garnered a beautiful oil on canvas, "Springtime on the Bayou," by Barbara Hines, as an auction item for the Nov. 1 Buffalo Bayou Ball.

A recognized artist in her own right, Barbara happens to be the wife of Gerald Hines, founder and chairman of the international development company that bears his last name. And it happens to be Hines' CEO for the Southwest Region, Mark Cover, who is being honored at the casual dinner evening on the Sabine Street Bridge. It also happens to be Hines senior veep of corporate communications George Lancaster who co-chairs the evening with Marley Lott.

This genial fundraiser offers not only a chance to bid on the painting but also the opportunity to support the various activities of the partnership (Dragon Boat Festival, Nights on Blue Bayou, etc.) and to rub elbows with some of the city's top movers and shakers. This is one event that Mayor Annise Parker and partner Kathy Hubbard seldom miss.

Ghost town vows

We can hardly think of a lovelier wedding date/locale than a Labor Day merger in the environs of Aspen. The tourist throngs have departed and the weather is seriously hinting at fall. So we applaud Buffalo Bayou Partnership's Jennifer Gaines and Hines' veep Steve Dolman, who tied the knot in the Rocky Mountains over the weekend.

More than 200 guests, most of them Houstonians, made the trek for a weekend of partying that culminated in the couple's Sunday night wedding in the quaint ghost town of Ashcroft, an old mining haunt 10 miles south of Aspen. A good number of guests came from Brazil, where the groom was stationed with Hines before returning to Houston to head up management of Hines' Latin American fund.

After saying their vows in the great outdoors, the newlyweds led their guests over to the Pine Creek Cookhouse for cocktails and hors d'oeuvres before the wedding party moved into a vast party tent for buffet dinner and dancing to the sounds of a New York City DJ. We hear that she was the best DJ wonder ever.

The Houston crowd included Isabel and Danny David, Kristy and Chris Bradshaw, Nic Phillips, Linsay and Jeremy Radcliffe, Divya and Chris Brown, George Lancaster, Claire Cormier Thielke and Rick Thielke, Stacy and John Andell, Bevin and Dan Dubrowski, Joshua Espinedo and Nathan Reedy, Katy Casey, Brian Thorpe and Holly Wall.

Feasting with Andre Johnson

The Houston Texans wide receiver and a pal settled in at Katsuya (one of his faves) Saturday night for a feast of Katsuya specialties including creamy rock shrimp, baked crab handroll, crispy soft-shell crab, prime Kobe tobanyaki, prime rib eye and lobster dynamite, among others.

A beautiful redo

Give Linda Cunningham and Julie O'Neal a few more weeks and then the transformation of the River Oaks boutique Haut Chocolat will be complete and in its place will be the swank new Cunningham & Co.

O'Neal says via email that the new store "will channel the energy of New York and the sophistication of Paris and offer women a beautiful selection of European and American contemporary apparel, jewelry and accessories." Look for doors at 2001 West Gray to open during the second week of October.