Real City Hall wedding: Mira + Ricardo

Such an adorable, intimate City Hall wedding with a celebration amongst friends in Brooklyn….kinda perfect, right?

“Ricardo and I wanted to spend our wedding day celebrating with our close friends, and visiting places that were special and meaningful to us.  We also wanted to keep the celebration rolling after our early afternoon ceremony into the evening. We had an intimate, heartwarming ceremony with a handful of our friends at the iconic City Hall in Manhattan.

We live in Brooklyn, had our first few dates there, and wanted to celebrate half of the day at locations where our relationship began.  After the ceremony, we headed to Fort Greene and visited spots like where we had our first kiss and our favorite restaurants. Putnam’s Clinton Hill pub was a local haunt of mine and I had invited Ricardo there on our second date. It was a great place to relax with our friends before the party, eat a few bites and of course share some celebratory drinks.

Later in the evening, we hosted a small reception for 40 people in Williamsburg at the Nighthawk Cinema Café. The expert bartender poured specialty cocktails for our guests.  Everyone enjoyed great music and delicious appetizers. The intimate room allowed us to talk and laugh with our friends.

It was a slightly overcast cloudy day, but the lighting allowed our photographer, Miho to capture so many wonderful moments. We couldn’t have asked for a more perfect wedding day.”

Venue: Nitehawk Cinema
Hotel: NU Hotel
Bar: Putnam’s Pub
Flower: Kat Flower
Makeup and Hair: Theo Kogan (Armour Beauty)
Cake: One Girl Cookies

[images from Miho Aikawa]

Real elopement: Suzanna + Nick

I love the idea of a guerrilla-style wedding at one of the most magical places in NYC: the Metropolitan Museum of Art!  Would have loved to have stumbled onto that quick ceremony.  More details below…

Nick and Suzanna swiftly led us through the maze of the Metropolitan Museum of Art to the location they’d selected a few weeks before. A ten-minute ceremony, a kiss, and a signature. Done. Married. No permission, no permits, no catering decisions.  Absent-mind museum-goers stopped in their tracks as they grasped what they’d stumbled upon. Many paused to watch from afar and applauded timidly as the newlyweds kissed. I waited for the security guard in the corner to interrupt, but as long as we didn’t try to walk off with the Lichtenstein, no one seemed to mind; sitting on the staircase appears to be a much bigger offense in The Met than a little guerrilla wedding ceremony!

Suzanna on Lichtenstein’s Stepping Out: “We wanted a contemporary piece that resonated with us. It does. It’s about love and the complexities therein without being too simple or too dark. There is a balance and truthfulness in the piece that, I think, struck a cord with both of us. Also, it just looks really cool and very much meets our aesthetic.”

Suzanna asked her mom to send her the bracelet and her dad for one of his handkerchiefs to complete her Something Olde, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue. Her father included an arrowhead and a silver dollar minted the year he and her mother were married, all of which she held during the ceremony. 

[images from Buena Lane Photography]

Real Brooklyn wedding: Abby + Bill

How amazing is Abby’s black Alexander McQueen dress?  If you scroll all the way to the bottom, you’ll see how well it shows off her rad tattoo….

Are you daring enough to wear black for your wedding?

Floral Designer:  Sprout Home Brooklyn
Dress Designer:  Alexander McQueen
Makeup Artist:  NYC Faces
Shoes:  Cole Haan
Tuxedo and Mens Attire:  Calvin Klein
Bakery:  Momofuku Milk Bar
Event Venue:  Brooklyn Winery

[images from Clean Plate Pictures]

Real wedding: Michael + Andy

When you match up a lawyer with an architect (who happens to be handy with graphic design!) and they’re getting married in Brooklyn, you’ve got a recipe for a cool ass wedding!  See more details below…

From Michael:

Andy is a civil rights attorney and Michael is an architect. The ceremony and reception took place at the LePerq space at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, with a cocktail hour in between held in the lobby of BAM. We wanted the evening to look like the wedding of two slightly nerdy boys – unfussy, but with beautiful but slightly strange flowers, which were mostly succulents, air plants and odd pods and seeds with clumps of moss on the table in between vessels that evoked lab glass. Similarly, the seating chart too the form of a large diagram with each guest’s name and table color coded, and their relation to us and the other guests mapped. Guests could figure out the “So, how do you know them?” question on their own.

For the photo booth we asked our friends to bring Brooklyn-styled props, so laser cut black mustaches, monocles, and pipes were available to pose with. And handcuffs, which were a big hit. And everyone danced. Josh was a superb DJ.

VENDORS

Officiant: The Hon Jerome B Simandle, Chief United States District Judge for the District of New Jersey (Andy was his law clerk)
Flowers: Liza Lubell of Peartree Flowers
Photographer: Agaton Strom
Catering: Great Performances
Cake: Momofuku Milk Bar
DJ: Josh Sparber/Twerking Hard
Venue: Brooklyn Academy of Music

[images from Agaton Strom]

Real wedding: Angela + Jason

Stunningly beautiful (and pregnant!) bride Angela and her husband got married at the Ace Hotel here in NYC, in a simple ceremony with friends and family.  Isn’t she positively glowing?

VENDORS

Dress: Schone Bridal

Florals: Sprout Florals

Venue: Ace Hotel, NYC

Cake & favors: Momofuku Milk Bar

[images from Corey Torpie Photography]