From the Brooklyn Bridge to Central Park to Times Square
Paul and Andy are planning a California Destination Wedding in 2024 and chose me to capture their special day. They're both from California but moved to New York to go to graduate school and work in the theater industry. Since both places mean so much to them, I figured why not do their Engagement Session in New York City so we can bring some of that to their Monterey Wedding?! And that's exactly what we did.
Funny story about this session… 🫣
We had a full adventure day New York City Engagement Session with Paul + Andy. We started out in the early morning with DUMBO as our first location, then traveled north to Central Park where we wandered around capturing all sorts of sweet moments, then ended the day with about 20 minutes in Times Square. Since both of them are in the theater industry, they really wanted to end their day with a few ironic NYC Times Square bright lights shots.
It had been about 8 years since my last visit to NYC so it took me awhile to get my bearings. Understanding the city post-2020, relearning the subway system, you know just the basic NYC stuff. For the start of our session, we were a few minutes late because of being directionally-challenged...but we made it! We had so much fun playing around DUMBO and capturing some incredible shots as the sun was rising higher in the sky. From there we ventured to Central Park. We stopped for some refreshments at Levain Bakery for some cookies, then proceeded to walk around Central Park looking for good lighting and not too many crowds. Our last location for the morning was heading up to their neighborhood and snapping a few shots of this area which means so much to them.
Then we took a little break. My assistant and I went to lunch and played tourists for a bit, then it was time for the evening part of their session.
On our way there, my assistant and I barely missed the train we were supposed to take that would have gotten us there with about 5-10 minutes of buffer time.
They were doing construction on the E track and didn’t have proper signage explaining that the E train had been moved to the lower platform (which was the one we were supposed to take), so my assistant and I were trying to figure it out. Just as we did, we went to the lower platform and were waiting for our train.
It was taking longer than it should have, then we heard the announcement…they were removing a train from the track and they were “sorry for the delay." No timeframe of when it was going to be completed, no ETA for when to expect trains to be up and running again.
We waited about 5 minutes and quickly decided it was taking too long and we needed to get to our meeting location now. My assistant and I quickly decided to walk the blocks we needed if we had any chance of making it with enough time to properly capture these cuties in this moment. So that’s what we did.
I might be 5’2” but the way I can quickly cut through the busy NYC crowds is a skill
We made it
WE MADE IT!
We got to spend about 20 minutes running around the busy, hectic Times Square capturing these two surrounded by the bright lights, crowds of tourists, traffic, food trucks, etc but it felt like we were the only ones there...
Scroll down to see some sneak peeks from Paul + Andy's New York City Adventure Engagement Session and enjoy their beautiful connection!
P.S. My grooms were SO patient and understanding as us West Coasters did our best to figure out timing and travel in NYC and we love them so much 😂