Winter engagement shoot in Owl's Head Park /  by Ryan Brenizer

We love Brooklyn parks … all of the greenery and glory of Manhattan Parks, and far, far fewer random people moseying around in the background of photos. This is especially true for people like Gina and Pat, who were willing to brave Owl’s Head Park on a blustery winter day in nothing more than sweaters and jeans. We warmed up with a quick indoor session at the Brooklyn Firefly.

Gina headed the astonishingly great CxRAstaff who catered our wedding, and so we’re doubly excited to document hers in the (we hope) warmer month of August.

Lyndhurst Castle wedding /  by Ryan Brenizer

One of the ways Allie and Luke express their love is through regular dance-offs in their home … and it showed. Their Lyndhurst Castle wedding was not only incredibly beautiful, but ridiculously, incredibly fun. You know you’re in for a good time when an extremely elegant long-sleeve wedding gown is traded in for a party outfit specifically designed for maximum get-downage.

This is one of those weddings where I feel like each word I say is just a road block between you and photos of a deeply emotional, completely gorgeous day. I could tell you about the importance they place on family, but it’s more important that you see that in their every action. I could tell you the weather was perfect, but … well in that case I’d be lying. It was raining hard in the morning and I had to pull my full-fledged weather geek card to provide some calm and promise that the 37 weather forecasts I read every morning all agreed that there was a zero percent chance of rain by ceremony time, so there was no need to cancel their dreams of an outdoor ceremony.

(Thank you, assorted weather forecasters, for getting that right. I had to stick my neck out a bit on that one.)

Newport, RI wedding at the Rosecliff Mansion: Emilie and Nicole /  by Ryan Brenizer

Nicole and Emilie’s Rosecliff Mansion wedding celebrated Independence Day on many levels — there were countless couture nods, from the red, white and blue clothes they wore to the oh-so-Northeastern rehearsal dinner at Kempenaar’s Clambake Club to the custom color worn by their Instagram-famous dog, Charlie. There were all the trappings of a Newport summer weekend, from casual fun over seafood and fireworks, to impossibly ornate settings like the Rosecliff and The Elms. But it was given a deeper, sweeter meaning when, shortly before the wedding day, the Supreme Court invalidated any laws keeping same-sex couples from marrying in any of the United States

When I started shooting weddings, only one state allowed same-sex couples to marry, and though it was right next door, it wasn’t recognized in Rhode Island until 2013. So not only could Nicole and Emilie show what a smart, driven, devoted couple they are, this can be recognized in every inch of their country. It was a good reason to wave the flag even harder that day.

But there’s a lot more to them, and to the unbelievably gorgeous wedding. They drip intelligence; you feel a bit smarter being near them. They’re the sort of people who use “alacrity” in common conversation, but also the sort to turn into emotive puddles when their dog is nearby. It was such a great feeling to share this day with them, and to share the coverage with my own love, Tatiana Breslow. I’m smiling just looking at these photos again, so I’m going to get out of the way and share them:

Harvard Club of New York wedding: Courteney and Tim /  by Ryan Brenizer

When I think of the Harvard Club, a lot comes to mind … elegance, pedigree, luxuriousness, blue plastic hats…

Well, now it does, after Courteney and Tim’s wedding. Amid all the grandeur, they and their friends found lots of time for hilarity and joy. It was harder to find photos from they day when they weren’t laughing. (Not that we tried hard — we’re solidly pro-joy here.)

This is what it’s about for us. Yes, they looked absolutely amazing. Yes, it was a gorgeous day in New York and the Harvard Club staff knocked it out of the park like always. But when you plan an event for so long and invest so much of it for the benefit of your loved ones, more than anything else you want them to have an amazing time, and that’s what we want to remember. And for us, there are nothing but great memories below.

3 West Club wedding /  by Ryan Brenizer

Angela and Sean's wedding at the beautiful 3 West Club merged a taste of Korean tradition with Western elegance. Emotional speeches and a lively reception capped off the day.

Tatiana was joined by the excellent Diane Stredicke to document this wedding.

NYC Elopement and Tribeca Grill Wedding /  by Ryan Brenizer

Tatiana and I love NYC elopements — so much that we had one. Simply making your way through New York life is stressful enough, and it can be a blessing to strip away some of the complications of a big wedding and focus on the closest friends and family.

Of course, this means there are going to be a lot of other people interested in what’s going on, and Kristin and Samir solved this in a very modern way, making it our first Facebook Live’d wedding.

They brought impeccable style and child-like joy to a warm winter day, making even the more-than-a-bit-DMV-like environment of the New York City Marriage Bureau a beautiful, emotional scene. We traipsed around Lower Manhattan with them a bit before heading to a small family dinner at the Tribeca Grill.

A Central Park Elopement: Katherine and Zak /  by Ryan Brenizer

One of the things I’ve forced myself to specialize in is getting good photos in terrible conditions, especially bad weather. Time after time I’ve been assaulted by rain or wind or cold or heat. I’m waiting for the cloud of locusts.

But sometimes you catch a break. When Katherine told me she wanted to spend three hours in Central Park in an amazing but not-very-warm dress in February, I said “OK, time to keep an emergency coffee thermos for her in my supply bag.”

It was SIXTY-THREE degrees. Or 17 degrees, since Katherine and Zak hail from Australia.

Absolute intimacy, absolute love, absolute beauty. I couldn’t think of a better way to start my wedding season. Also this is the first time I got to choose the ceremony location based on how it would look in photos. I think I did all right.

Gotham Hall wedding: Jackie and Paul /  by Ryan Brenizer

We sometimes wonder if we tempt fate when we tell couples we very nearly specialize in bad weather. Hurricanes, blizzards, floods — you name it, and we’ve navigated our way through them all on wedding days, and Mother Nature loves to throw it at us. For Jackie and Paul, we had another kind of challenge – a New York City wedding as August-y as it could be … hitting a heat index of 115 degrees right when we were slated to be walking around midtown on the way to the opulent Gotham Hall.

But if trapped in sidewalk-egg-frying weather, it helped so much to be in the company of a couple like Jackie and Paul, who not only took all this in stride, but were happy even to jump up on the hot hood of a taxi for a portrait. Armed with instant ice packs and unrelenting can-do attitudes, they kept focused on the things that really matter: their love for each other, celebrating that love with friends and family, and great air conditioning:)

We loved getting to know Jackie and Paul throughout the whole wedding planning process. From their engagement shoot where we visited their first date spot and home to their reception where sweetness abounded even with a serenade to Jackie by her dad, we loved it all. Thank you Jackie and Paul for making us a part of these happy days, and thank you to our good friend Jashim Jalal for all of your talent and help and planner-so-great-we-used-her-for-our-own-wedding Sara Landon at SL Events for bringing the awesome yet again.

Shangri-La Spa wedding: Anna and Kerry /  by Ryan Brenizer

Let me tell you a story about pressure. Pressure is when the bride for your January 2016 wedding first contacts you in April … April, 2009. Pressure is when said bride is also a wedding photographer … and goes on a wedding photography show … still years before she actually planned a wedding, saying that she would hire you for her wedding even if she had to wear a trash bag as a dress to do it.

That was the pressure of Anna and Kerry’s wedding. How could I, just some guy who likes to take pretty pictures of people enjoying themselves, live up to seven years of Anna’s hopes and dreams? I’m not sure I ever could, but thankfully I had an advantage that she never considered for most of that time … Tatiana, still the biggest secret weapon in wedding photography.

The biggest advantage, though, was the outsized personalities, hospitality, and general awesomeness of the bride and groom. Yes, we are blessed to have couples that seem to have a staggeringly high number of people maintaining their niceness through stressful, expensive wedding days, but it is something else when you find yourself using the bride and groom’s apartment as an ad hoc office the entire day after their wedding. Consider the smiles that you will see below, and consider how large they are despite their original venue being damaged by tornadoes right before their wedding, and that their gorgeous new venue, the Shangri-La Springs, was rained out on the morning of their wedding. Of course, there may have been some pent-up energy that was released when the sun peaked through the clouds, since at that moment Anna told the officiants to shorten the ceremony to exactly three minutes from processional to first kiss so they could run outside and soak it up.

It ended up being a beautiful day for them, whatever the weather. I barely remember the wetness, the dirty shoes … what I remember is the ringing laughter, the no small amount of tears, the beautiful decor put together by CocoLuna Events, and the bonds of new friendship I myself had made through this process. It was such a wonderful, terrifying honor … and thankfully, Anna got to wear a beautiful dress, and not a trash bag in sight.

Vintage engagement shoot at June Wine Bar: Michelle and Matthew /  by Ryan Brenizer

There’s vintage, and then there’s Michelle and Matthew. A lot of people dress up in vintage clothing for shoots, simply because it’s fun and looks great. But when Michelle met Matthew, she was impressed by how he looked in the 1920s strongman-style swimsuit he was wearing. She runs a blog called My Vintage Love, so a good part of their central identity looks back about 100 years.

So when Tatiana Breslow and I thought through their engagement shoot for them, we centered around some bars with beautiful interior woodwork to play off their look. The Campbell Apartments are in Grand Central, so they have to be very careful about how much photography they let in — even with prior approval, we were allowed to shoot with our dSLRs for exactly 90 seconds. One of the photos below was taken with an iPhone 6+, and I wasn’t doing it just to be showy — it was all we were allowed to use!

In contrast, June Wine bar in my studio’s Brooklyn neighborhood was so nice and amazingly accommodating that it almost freaked us out. “Why are you so nice? You know this is New York, right?”

Advantage, Brooklyn.

It is such a great thrill to work alongside Tatiana, and to see how our businesses and lives will improve as we merge in the coming year, and the thrill doubles when we work with a great couple. This shouldn’t be the last you see of Michelle and Matthew.

Glynwood Farms wedding: Heather and Aaron /  by Ryan Brenizer

The grass is always greener on the other side, and for New York photographers, with rustic wedding venues like Glynwood Farms we take that literally. “Wait, there are trees here? And fresh air? And not once has a security guard threatened us? What is this magical place?”

There are many ways to describe how great Heather and Aaron are, but let me try a very 2016 one: I’d totally listen to their podcast if they had one. You can’t talk to them for a minute without getting hit with how intelligent, funny, and kind they are, and what a good pair they make. Their friendship and connection was keenly evident all day, and that connection was the star even with the gorgeous farm surrounding and their wildly celebrating friends and relatives.

As always, a great day is made even sweeter when I can cover it alongside Tatiana. Thanks to Main Course Catering and Flowers by April for making the day even more beautiful and delicious.

Stage 6 at Steiner Studios Wedding: Miranda and Vanessa /  by Ryan Brenizer

At least three of the 10 funniest speeches I’d heard at weddings all year were at Miranda and Vanessa’s reception, and during the third I couldn’t hold back both a shocked laugh at some strange synchronicity: When Vanessa first met her future roommate (and speech-giver), she’d asked her: “Are you the bestat anything?”

I am fascinated by people who are among the best at things, the weirder the better. What drives them, how to their brains work, what are their daily lives like … these questions itch at me. I have an ongoing photography project devoted to it, but it’s been put on hold for … well … the entirety of my wedding photography career. Oops.

But life has a way of coming full circle, and this same career brought me to document the glorious wedding of Miranda and Vanessa. At the time, Vanessa had been alluding to her apparently masterful Minesweeper record, but in most circles she’s better known for poker. Suffice to say I made sure to never bet anything with anyone at the wedding.

And for at least this day, my questions were answered — what drives them forward is an incredible bond of love and joy, and deep commitment to friends from all circles of their live. It was as calm and beautiful a day as I’d ever had at Stage 6 at Steiner Studios, because for someone who has mastered a sport famous for steely intensity, it was simply … chill (for a wedding).

Miranda’s kindness and warmth kept things throughout the day, right to asking me whether I could teach them how to Dougie. Sadly it never played, but we shared a gorgeous night on the Steiner Rooftop. Thank you, Miranda and Vanessa, for having me document this day; you’re the best.

Bryant Park Grill wedding: Allyson and Isaac /  by Ryan Brenizer

You don’t generally associate “Midtown Manhattan” and “chill,” but Allyson and Isaac’s wedding at the Bryant Park Grill managed to achieve that feeling with a keen focus on the big picture — whatever happens, they still get to marry their best friend. When I consulted with Isaac a couple days before the wedding and said “Unfortunately it looks like your wedding is going to be the coldest day in weeks, should we change anything?” He was able to just say “Nah, we’ll be good whatever happens.” Of course, in Manhattan it helps when everything is within walking distance from each other. Allyson got ready at the Bryant Park Hotel, which is as close to the Bryant Park Grill as it sounds  — her hotel room, which doubled for the ketubah signing, actually looked out over the ceremony.

Isaac says:“Allyson has the biggest heart of anyone I have ever met.” He loved the first look at Grand Central, which they chose not just for its beauty but because it has played roles in their daily life and the lives of their parents. He says “that was when it all hit me in the face, it was really happening, the best day of my life was finally here.”

Allyson says: “Isaac’s sincerity is one of the the qualities I love most about him. He makes everyone in the room feel special, welcome and wanted.” She also loved the raucous celebrations with Kinky Spigot and the Welders: “After dinner, I was dancing to ‘Boogie on Reggae Woman’ and totally getting my groove on. I turned around and saw the entire crowd on the dance floor having a fun time. Not a single person was seated. It was an awesome moment!”

I loved being able to share a day like this with Tatiana — our only problem is that the dancing was so much fun we wanted to be in it, but shooting a reception has a rhythm and a movement to it, to put us in the middle of all of the energy.