You might recall Angela + Marc’s engagement sesion from a couple of months back – she wore that stunning white feathered cocktail dress.  Well she really outdid herself for her wedding day with this little number by Monique Lhuillier.

And her sweet metallic fuschia Loubs.

Angela LOVES fushcia.  And anything that sparkles.  And she used both to their best advantage for her wedding theme.

When I showed up at Angela’s suite I had brought along the Signing Guest Book that we had made from the engagement portraits.  Their reaction just made my day.

We did our family formals outside The Plaza (gotta love those shoes!) And at one point while waiting for a missing family member, Angela decided to give her feet a rest and sit on the stairs.

These are the moments that I live for.   They’re just perfect and they happen by themselves and they only last a moment.  It’s like magic but you do need to be continuously looking for them and pray that you’re ready when they occur.

Downtown at Grace Church…

Apparently the ringbearer was under the impression that Angela might not make it down the aisle – so he decided he would give her some incentive.

There was another ceremony that day as well – a Korean Paebak.  Since this is Angela’s mother’s second paebak, she is exceptionally good at tossing those dates and nuts into the ceremonial cloth.

Apparently, her aim is so good that Angela and Marc will be having 16 children.

Guests were transported back to The Plaza by double decker tour buses.  With pink parasols for the ladies.

And of course, then there’s The Plaza’s Ballroom.

Bentley Meeker does the lighting.  And in the newly refurbished ballroom it’s so well integrated that it’s almost invisible.

And the cake by Sylvia Weinstock.

Marc is the nicest guy.  You could tell he really adored Angela.

After awhile the waiters served flipflops on silver trays for the ladies to change into.

That really helped everyone get their groove on.

Angela and Marc took a moment later in the evening to enjoy the pictures we had taken that day.  Such a great way for the guests to experience all that happened that day that they weren’t privy too.  They go home feeling as if they were there all along.

And as the night progresses, the guestbook begins to fill up.

The ringbearer swinging…

I really love the space.  If you’re into old world grandeur – it’s hard to beat it.

First, you have to start with an awesome shot. Below is an image that Kim took moments before our bride Sarah went down the aisle. It is a wonderful example of the readiness and split second timing that is required to capture real moments and tell a successful story.

Look at how she has brought all the elements of the story together in this one image. The stained glass in the background sets the location – you know you’re in the church. There’s an arm fixing Sarah’s veil off to the side so you know it’s likely before she goes down the aisle. And that’s Sarah’s Dad in the background, checking his watch which helps to explain the palpable tension on Sarah’s face.

But can we extract even more from the moment in post-production?

The first frame shows the image as it comes out of the camera. In the second frame we see that by cross processing the image, we cool off the tones and give the image a little more zip. The processing provides a little additional separation for Dad and it brings both the aqua of the church foyer and the bluish highlights on Dad’s tux into a complementary tonality for the flowers in Sarah’s bouquet. Now it’s really singing.

Since the image was so timeless, I also wanted to see what it would look like in black and white (3rd frame). But in reality, my images are almost never b&w but are always slightly warmed up (4th frame). However, when we did the conversion to b&w, we lost a bit of the separation between Sarah’s Dad and the wall so we tried a bit of old school dodging and burning and added a contrast adjustment to see if we could heighten the dramatic tension and make him pop out again (frame 5). All of the treatments work well, so which do you choose?

We would make a selection based on the image’s intended usage. That’s why we do final production and retouching AFTER an album has been designed. As we’re doing an album design, we take into account how post-production can affect each image to be sure that they work in context with the other images around them. But if you start with wonderful images like this one of Kim’s, and you know how to work them to best effect, you have plenty of options to extract the most from each one for the album.

I personally am partial to these two depending on whether you needed b&w or color:

and

vanessa, wanted to do some shots in the meat packing district so she got ready at the hotel gansevoort. of course, she was just beautiful.

and they wanted to grab a shot as they headed uptown as well. can you identify the location?

a great looking couple – and a special thanks to matt for an outstanding job on their wedding.

Melana and Evan’s wedding was at Cipriani Wall Street. We’ve been there on a number of occasions but I really liked the way that the florist, Aramat Events, did the room this time.

And Melana really looked stunning in her dress from Pronovias.

Stunning right?

Before the ceremony we headed out to grab some shots in the Wall Street area.

Here’s the stunning setup for the ceremony at Cipriani Wall Street.

And the shot from our “BalconyCam”.

The location is actually the former National City Bank Building. Though nowadays you may know it as Citibank.
Imagine if Citi went to build a place like that today???

But it was great the way Aramat created height on the tables to match the soaring scale of the space.

And allowed the guests to converse unencumbered.

The location also provides you with enough space for a sizable band and a BIG hora.

Many thanks to Randy Janis of Cipriani as well for helping us out that day.

Matt has been shooting with us for almost 5 years – and for the last year or so, he’s been the lead photographer on a number of our events. During the week, Matt is a dance photographer. He shares a studio with Lois Greenfield in SoHo. For you who don’t know, Lois is THE dance photographer. No really, if you google “dance photography”, she’s #1. Matt may very well be the next #1. He has shot close to 1/2 of the covers for the big dance magazines over the last 9 months.

Anyway, Matt asked me to join him shooting a wedding in Brooklyn – enticing me with – “It’s a disco wedding, with a marching band and a lady circus!” Now how can you say no to that?

Grand Prospect Hall in Brooklyn, really is old world grand. A lot of the original detail has been preserved so you feel like you’re going back in time when you walk in.

The best part of shooting a wedding as a “second” photographer instead of the lead is that you get to do the really fun shots. I saw the lights they were using to spotlight the couple during their first dance, and I thought it’d make a great shot from above. Here I ran up to the balcony and timing the moving lights just so… made a heart for them to dance in.

Bring on the Hungry Marching Band!

And the Lady Circus!

With fire jugglers!

No kidding!

And one girl was doing the strangest dance – she had her hair stuffed up her nose.

Just kidding on that one.

But it really was a Disco Wedding. All the guests were completely decked out 70s style. Here they whisk the groom off the dancefloor.

And dump him.

Just kidding.

She had on one of the most amazing dresses I had ever seen.

It had so much wonderful detailing.

It’s great to have a suite like those at the Waldorf when you’re getting ready. There’s enough room to find some great angles on what’s going on.

They looked so good that I thought I’d take a cover shot on spec. Just in case…

Anyway, I digress.

Irena and Billy live in the area and hired me to create engagement portraits for them in Tribeca and on the Brooklyn Bridge. It was important to them that we incorporate things into the images so that the location could be identified even by out-of-towners.

Below my trusty Tilt-shift lens helps me focus not only on Irena’s beautiful eyes, but also on the glass sidewalk vault steps. Tribeca has tons of these glass sidewalk vaults since this was primarily a shipping area and companies used every square inch they could get to warehouse their goods. Including underground. But to let a little light in below they inserted these purple glass circles in the cast iron vaults.

This one is for a perfume advertisement.

An homage to Irena’s modeling days…

If you had to script a shot to show that classic moment of tension just before the bride goes down the aisle I don’t think you could do much better than this image of Sarah lost in the moment. A mysterious hand adjusting her veil and that’s her father checking his watch in the background.

Ready or not…. here we come.

And what makes these images extra special is the fact that Sarah is the third generation in her family to get married in this church in Manhattan.

Daniella and Adam were high school sweethearts growing up in Livingston, NJ together. It was inevitable that they would tie the knot and have a great time doing it.

Stunning, right?

They really act like best friends. You can see it in their photographs.

But the coolest part? Knishes, Pastrami Reubens, Dr. Brown’s Black Cherry Soda and Egg Creams during cocktails! Awesome. Now either you appreciate this stuff or you don’t. Personally, this is how I get in touch with my roots. And if you’ve never had an egg cream with a pretzel, well – you gotta expand your horizons and make new friends. This is not for tribe members only.

Dinner service was stunning as well.

Lastly, I wanted to share with you some shots from Sayuri and Jeff’s Wedding at The Metropolitan Club in NYC.

Now while Sayuri looked stunning in bridal white …

Check her and her bridesmaids out in their Eastern garb.

Sayuri also wins the annual prize for best calligraphy. Such a wonderful dying art.

Even the cake was designed to match the outfits.

Such a pleasure to work with so many wonderful designers, caterers, artists, stylists – they just give us so much to work with!