New York Pre Wedding Photoshoot
I’m Barrie Downie, a London wedding photographer, and New York is the city I get asked to fly to most outside Europe. A pre-wedding shoot there is a different proposition to one in London — the light is harder, the crowds are worse, and the permits matter. This page covers where to shoot, when, and what it actually costs to bring me over.
Where the photographs actually come from
- Brooklyn Bridge. The one everybody wants, and the one most people get wrong. By nine in the morning the walkway is solid with tourists and cyclists who are not pleased to see you. Get there for sunrise and you have it more or less to yourself for an hour.
- DUMBO, Washington Street. The Manhattan Bridge framed between the warehouses. Small, busy, and worth the ten minutes it takes.
- The New York Public Library. Beaux-Arts, and one of the few genuinely grand interiors in the city you can work in. Rules vary by room, so it needs checking ahead.
- Midtown streets. Steam, yellow cabs, fire escapes. This is where New York looks most like itself, and it costs nothing but nerve.
- Central Park and the Plaza. Good in autumn, difficult in high summer when the canopy goes flat and green.
Timing, light and crowds
New York is a hard-light city. The buildings are tall enough that between mid-morning and mid-afternoon you are working in either blazing sun or deep shadow, often within a few feet of each other. The two windows that work are the first hour after sunrise and the last hour before sunset — and of those, sunrise is the one nobody else is using.
Autumn is the best season by a distance: warm light, colour in the park, and temperatures you can stand in formal clothes. Spring is unpredictable. Winter shoots can be spectacular but they are genuinely cold — the wind coming off the water at the Brooklyn Bridge in April cut our last shoot short.
Permits — worth knowing before you plan
Professional photography in New York City’s parks, and in some public buildings, can require a permit, particularly if there’s a tripod or lighting involved. Handheld work on public streets is generally fine. I’d rather flag this than have you find out on the day — if we’re shooting somewhere that needs paperwork, we sort it in advance.
A shoot I did there
I flew out to photograph Layla and Richard’s wedding at the James Burden Mansion opposite Central Park, and we arranged a pre-wedding shoot around Manhattan a few days beforehand. Partly for the photographs, partly so they weren’t losing hours of their wedding day to portraits.
We met at The Plaza, where Layla was having her hair and makeup finished. She wore a pink strapless gown by Suzanne Neville, and Richard produced a pair of diamond earrings he hadn’t told her about. Her reaction to that is in the set below, and it isn’t a face anyone can perform.
From there we worked down through a street she used to live on, City Hall, the Brooklyn Bridge and the New York Public Library. We’d have kept going, but between the wind and Manhattan traffic we called it and went to dinner with both families instead — which turned out to be the right decision. You can see their New York wedding photographs here.
What it costs
A pre-wedding shoot in New York is £3,995. On top of that you cover flights and two or three nights’ accommodation, at cost with no markup. Most couples fold this into a trip they were making anyway, or pair it with a New York wedding, which is what Layla and Richard did.
Questions I get asked
How long do we need?
Three hours covers two or three locations properly once you allow for traffic. New York punishes optimistic scheduling — everything takes longer than the map suggests.
Can we change outfits?
Yes, and it’s worth it. A car and a hotel within reach makes it painless; trying to do it in a coffee shop bathroom does not.
What’s the best month?
Late September through October. Warm enough, good colour, and the light is at its most usable.
When do we get the photographs?
Your full edited gallery within one week of the shoot, with high-resolution downloads and no watermarks.
Elsewhere
If you’re weighing up destinations, I’ve written up pre-wedding shoots in Iceland and weddings in Tuscany, and the destination wedding photography page covers the rest. If you’d rather stay closer to home, the London pre-wedding page lists twenty locations across the city.
Planning a shoot in New York?
Tell me roughly when you’ll be there and what you’d like out of it. I read every enquiry myself and reply personally within a couple of hours.
