New York, United States
New YorkWedding photography
The only city where the building behind you is doing half the work.
We photograph weddings across New York City and the Hudson Valley — private clubs and library rooms on the Upper East Side, downtown lofts where the whole day happens in one room, and estates an hour north for couples who want a country wedding with a city guest list. Two photographers, full-day coverage, commissions from $14,000.
A New York wedding is shorter than almost any other on this list, because guests are going home rather than upstairs. That compression is the thing worth planning around, and it is the first thing we talk about.
New York gives a photographer two things nowhere else does: vertical light, which falls down between buildings in a hard bright column for about forty minutes either side of noon, and a crowd that has seen everything and will walk straight past you. Both are useful. Neither is reliable, which is why a New York wedding is planned around interiors and the hour after the ceremony rather than around a view.
The weddings here divide cleanly. There is the city version — a ceremony downtown, a private room, a walk between the two that becomes the whole portrait session. And there is the Hudson Valley version an hour north, which is a country wedding that happens to have Manhattan in its guest list. They are photographed differently and they are worth distinguishing before anyone books a venue.
What both share is that the day is compressed. Guests come from within an hour, nobody stays over, and the schedule has no slack in it. A twelve-hour wedding in Tuscany becomes an eight-hour wedding here, and the portrait window that a country venue leaves open all evening is, in Manhattan, a twenty-minute appointment between the ceremony and the receiving line.
So we plan it as an appointment. We establish where the sun will be on your street at that hour on that date, we pick the position in advance rather than looking for one on the day, and we put it in the schedule with the same weight as the first dance. In this city there is no afterwards.
The light
When to marry in New York.
The part a visitor cannot look up, and the reason this page exists rather than a list of packages.
March to May
The best light of the year and the least reliable weather. Long low afternoons down the cross streets, bare trees in the parks until late April, and a real chance of a cold grey Saturday.
June to August
Harsh overhead sun and humidity that shows in every photograph of a linen jacket. Early evening is the only comfortable outdoor hour; the rooms are where the work is.
September to November
The season everyone wants, correctly. Clear air, long amber light down the cross streets, and the Hudson Valley an hour away turning over. Book eighteen months out.
December to February
Short days and a portrait window that closes by half past four, which makes an early ceremony essential. In exchange the interiors are at their best and the city is at its least crowded.
The venues
Where to be married in New York.
The rooms this market is built on, and what each one does to a photograph. Listed as places rather than as partnerships — we have no preferred-supplier arrangement with any of them.
The Plaza
Grand hotel, Fifth Avenue
The Grand Ballroom is a windowless room, which means the light in your photographs is whatever the lighting designer builds. Worth agreeing before the day rather than discovering at seven.
Cipriani 25 Broadway
Former bank hall, Financial District
Sixty-five feet of ceiling and a marble hall on the scale of a cathedral. The room dwarfs a wedding unless the photographs are composed to use its height rather than fight it.
The Rainbow Room
Sixty-fifth floor, Rockefeller Center
Windows on every side and the city as the backdrop. After dark the glass turns into a mirror, so the portraits that use the view have to happen before the light goes.
Gotham Hall
Former savings bank, Herald Square
A stained-glass oculus sixty feet up throws coloured light down the middle of the floor for a few hours either side of midday, and nothing like it exists anywhere else in the city.
Brooklyn Botanic Garden
Glasshouse and gardens, Brooklyn
The Palm House is the one large room in New York that is made of daylight. Cherry blossom in late April brings a two-week window that books further ahead than anything else here.
Oheka Castle
Château and formal gardens, Long Island
A French-style estate ninety minutes out, with an axial garden that photographs like Europe. The drive is the cost, and it has to be built into the schedule rather than hoped through.
The kind of place
- Private members’ clubs and library rooms with tall windows and no natural exit
- Downtown lofts where the whole day happens in one room as the light moves across it
- Hotel ballrooms that photograph as well as their lighting designer allows, and no better
- Hudson Valley estates and barns an hour north, for a country wedding with a city guest list
What a New York wedding plans around
- Photography for personal use in the public parks is generally unrestricted; tripods, lighting and anything that looks like a production are not. We work handheld here for that reason.
- A wedding party moving between three addresses in Manhattan on a Saturday is a transport problem before it is a photographic one. We build the portrait window around the traffic, not the other way round.
- City Hall ceremonies run to their own queue and their own clock, and the photographs that matter happen on the steps afterwards.
- Most venues here have a hard end time set by the building rather than by you, and a freight elevator schedule that decides when anything can be moved in or out.
- The Hudson Valley is an hour north without traffic and two with it. A five o’clock ceremony up there means leaving the city before two.
Frames
From New York.
The commission
Photographing a wedding in New York.
A New York wedding is commissioned as a full day with two photographers, from the quiet of the morning through to the last car, and it starts at $14,000. The second photographer is not optional here: in a room with no natural exit and a schedule with no slack, the vow and the face receiving it happen in the same second and in opposite directions.
Before the day we walk your venue at the hour of your ceremony — not at the hour we happen to be free — because a room with tall windows at four o’clock in October is a different room at four o’clock in June. That walk is included. So is a planning call, usually about an hour and usually a year out, where the schedule gets read backwards from sunset.
You receive a preview set within seven days and the complete hand-graded set within eight weeks, at full resolution, with a private archive and a print release that does not expire. Nothing from your wedding is published anywhere without your written consent, and for a great many of the commissions we take in this city that is the reason they came to us.
- Wedding, from
- $14,000
- Photographers
- Two
- Preview
- 7 days
- Full delivery
- 8 weeks
Wedding photography commissions in New York
Every commission on this site is available in New York. See all seven.
New York wedding photography — questions
How much does a wedding photographer cost in New York?
Our commissions here begin at $14,000 for a full day with two photographers, and most New York weddings land between that and $22,000 depending on the length of the day and whether there is a welcome dinner or a brunch on either side of it. There is no album tier held back and no charge to receive your own photographs at full resolution.
Can you photograph in Central Park?
Yes, and we do, handheld and without lighting. Anything involving a tripod, a light stand or a crew is a different category in the eyes of the Parks Department and needs a permit — we will tell you which one your plan falls into before you assume it.
Is a city wedding shorter than a country one?
Almost always, and it changes the commission. Guests leave earlier because they are going home rather than upstairs, and the whole day is often eight hours rather than twelve. We would rather photograph the right eight than pad it out to look like better value.
How far ahead should we book?
Twelve to eighteen months for a Saturday in September or October, which are the two months everyone wants and the two that go first. A winter date is often available inside six months, and December in this city photographs better than its reputation suggests.
Do you travel to the Hudson Valley and Long Island?
Regularly, and there is no travel charge within two hours of the city — the Hudson Valley, Long Island and the Connecticut shoreline are all inside that. Beyond it, travel is quoted at cost and itemised before it is booked.
What happens if it rains?
We photograph in it, and an overcast day is the most flattering light there is for a face. What rain removes in this city is the long view down a street, not the portrait — and every venue here has an interior worth using, which is more than most destinations can say.
Nearby
Married in New York?
Tell us the date and what you are planning. We reply personally, usually within two business days.