I have photographed 122 weddings in Manhattan, at 68 different venues, going back to 2010. Ballrooms, a synagogue, restaurants, rooftops, hotels at every price point, a music venue, City Hall, and a pavilion in Central Park.
I love all of them. That is not a thing I say to be agreeable. Manhattan is the most varied place I have ever worked and I cannot think of anywhere else with this many venues that feel this different from each other.
About the word in the URL
This page lives at an address with “best” in it, because that is the phrase people type into Google. I am not going to spend a paragraph arguing for the adjective. 🙂
Here is the number instead. 122 weddings in this borough, 68 venues, since 2008.
Why Manhattan is not like anywhere else
The city is a crowded mess. That is what makes it hard, and it is also what makes it wonderful and magical.
Every other market I have worked in has a type. A look, a season, a set of venues that all rhyme with each other. Manhattan refuses to do that. You can shoot a black-tie ballroom wedding on Saturday and a restaurant wedding for forty people on Sunday and they will have nothing in common except the borough.
And the streets! There is life and beauty everywhere here, on blocks nobody would think to put on a list. Some of my favorite photographs have come from the ten minutes between a ceremony and a reception, walking somewhere, because the light was doing something on a wall.
The venues I keep coming back to
The Bowery Hotel
Thirteen weddings, more than anywhere else in Manhattan, from 2010 to 2024. The Bowery does not pretend to be something it is not. It is dark, it is rich, and it is full of character. The suites have oriental rugs, deep wood, and velvet chairs that look pulled from a 1920s movie set, with window light that is soft and directional rather than flat and blinding. Suite 1403 is my favorite, and the balcony is the reason.
The terrace is partially enclosed, warm brick and weathered iron, and it catches afternoon light in a way that feels like a painting. Indoors, the green-tiled fireplace is my favorite ceremony spot in the building. If you have looked at the darker end of my work and responded to it, this is the building that end comes from. Full guide here.
Tribeca Rooftop
Eleven weddings. A 1920s printing press building on a cobblestone street downtown, with an 18,000 square foot rooftop deck and a 15,000 square foot penthouse interior under a 65-foot glass skylight. Daylight pours through it and the night sky takes over after dark.
Worth knowing before you tour: there is a 200 guest minimum, so it is not a venue for an intimate wedding. The getting-ready suite is small, and a large wedding party doing hair and makeup will want a separate space nearby. The cobblestone streets right outside are some of the best portrait ground in Tribeca. Full guide here.
The Yale Club
Seven weddings between 2012 and 2023. A 1915 Beaux-Arts building at 50 Vanderbilt with 24-foot ballroom ceilings, ornate moldings, and crystal chandeliers. Also, it is just super pretty.
There is a grand staircase, and I have never met a grand staircase I did not love. There is also a wood-paneled library, which is quiet and private and exactly the kind of room I want twenty minutes alone in with a couple. The rooftop terrace looks at the Empire State Building and is remarkable at sunset. And you are steps from Grand Central, which is extraordinary for portraits if you have a permit. Full guide here.
Angel Orensanz Foundation
Four weddings, most recently 2025. Originally a synagogue, now a landmarked arts space, and it feels more like walking into a theatre than a ballroom. Gothic arches, stained glass, soaring ceilings, colored light moving across the walls.
It is dark and it is constantly changing, which is precisely the kind of room my theatre background is for. Vows framed by stained glass and shadow do not disappear into the dark here. Step outside and the Lower East Side gives you murals, brick, and a community garden, which balances the ornate interior with something rougher. Full guide here.
Gotham Hall
A 1922 bank building on Broadway at 36th, designed by York and Sawyer as a deliberate nod to Roman civic architecture. Seventy-foot ceilings, Corinthian columns, and a 3,000 square foot stained glass skylight over the Grand Ballroom.
For indoor portrait variety there are very few buildings in New York that can match it. The architectural detail is relentless and there is something worth photographing in every direction. Full guide here.
Capitale
The facade on the Bowery is almost anonymous. Then you step through the doors into marble columns, frescoed ceilings, skylights pouring onto the main floor, and chandeliers overhead. Stanford White built it as the Bowery Savings Bank in 1895.
Theatrical, dark, moody, gorgeous. Exactly my kind of space. The golden entry arch is one of my favorite portrait locations in any building in the city. Full guide here.
The Colony Club
A Georgian Revival landmark at 564 Park Avenue, designed by Stanford White and finished in 1908, founded five years earlier as a place where women could gather when almost no such places existed. Eleanor Roosevelt and Vera Wang have both walked through it.
It is one of my favorite and sweetest wedding venues in Manhattan. The Library is worth the booking on its own. The Drawing Room has floor-to-ceiling windows and some of the best natural light of any indoor venue in the city. Full guide here.
Also on the list more than once
The Lighthouse at Chelsea Piers. Pier Sixty. Gramercy Park Hotel. Loeb Boathouse in Central Park. The Beekman. The Pierre. New York Yacht Club. Studio 450.
And the rest of the sixty-eight
The full list is what actually makes the case. Cipriani at three different addresses, Wall Street and 42nd Street and Broadway. Guastavino’s under the Queensboro Bridge. The Museum at Eldridge Street. The Plaza. The St. Regis. 620 Loft & Garden at Rockefeller Center. Le Bernardin. Tavern on the Green. The Mark. The Peninsula. Mandarin Oriental. Lotte New York Palace. The National Arts Club. The Century Association. James Burden Mansion. Little Owl The Townhouse. Ci Siamo. Freeman’s. Skylight West. Bowery Ballroom. Battery Gardens. Bryant Park Grill. Castell. Top of the Rock. Twenty Three Grand in SoHo. Mondrian SoHo. The Ladies Pavilion in Central Park. City Hall.
Ballrooms and restaurants and rooftops and a rock club and a municipal building, all in the same borough.
What shooting here actually requires
Timelines in Manhattan are tighter than couples expect. Ten blocks is not ten minutes when there is a parade, a film shoot, or a Tuesday. I build travel time into every plan and I would rather be early somewhere than watch a portrait window close in traffic.
Light between buildings changes fast and it changes by street. A room that is beautiful at four is a different room at six. That is one of the more useful conversations to have before the wedding day rather than during it.
Permits depend entirely on where you want to be. Grand Central needs one. Most streets do not. I sort that out rather than handing it to you.
And crowds. You are not getting an empty city and you should not want one. The people are the place.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many Manhattan weddings have you photographed?
122, at 68 different venues, from 2010 through this year.
Do you have a favorite Manhattan venue?
The Bowery Hotel, if I have to pick, and I have photographed thirteen weddings there. But the honest answer is that the range is the appeal. Gotham Hall and Little Owl are both Manhattan and they have nothing in common.
Do you shoot outside Manhattan?
Yes. Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, New Jersey, Long Island, the Hudson Valley, Philadelphia, and destinations. My New York City page covers the wider picture.
What if my venue is not one you have shot before?
That happens regularly and it is not a problem. I scout, I ask questions, and I show up early. Twenty-five years of reading rooms transfers.
Do we need a permit for Manhattan portraits?
It depends where. Grand Central requires one. Parts of Central Park require one for larger groups. Most public streets do not. I handle the research for wherever we are going.
How much time do we need for portraits in Manhattan?
More than you think, because of travel. If we are moving between locations I want the travel time built in separately from the shooting time. A tight Manhattan timeline works, but only if it is honest about how long the city actually takes.
Can we do portraits on the street?
Yes, and I would encourage it. The streets here are as good as anything inside a venue, and they look like nowhere else.
Do you photograph small weddings and City Hall ceremonies?
Yes. City Hall is on the list of 68. So is a pavilion in Central Park.
If your wedding is in Manhattan
Tell me the venue and I will tell you what I know about it, which after 122 weddings here is usually quite a lot. If it is one of the sixty-eight, I have already stood in that room and figured out where the light is.
