Happy Labor Day lovelies! We are celebrating an extra day off with this fabulous Bryant Park wedding! Is there seriously a more fabulous place to tie the knot in NYC? We think not! We’re totally eating up each and every single inch of this super chic soiree and judging by the oh-so-fabulous images by Bartosz Jastal, it was one amazing party. Click here for even more!
Click here for the FULL wedding!
From the Bride… When MJ and I got engaged, we weren’t sure what we wanted our wedding to look like. We didn’t know how traditional we wanted the day to be, and we were torn between a destination wedding (we loved the shared experience of the destination weddings we had been to) and a New York wedding. Once we started scoping out venues though, we fell in love with the idea of getting married in New York, since every other important moment in our relationship had occurred in the city. We met while at NYU, fell in love here and had been building our lives here in the seven years since.
And because we got married in New York, we were able to incorporate places important to us throughout the weekend. We had our rehearsal dinner at the restaurant where we had our first real date (we were in college, so by the time this “date” occurred, we had been dating for a while). And on Saturday, after the wedding was over, we school-bused our guests to Finnerty’s, our favorite college bar, for an after-party of kegs and New York pizza. As for the wedding venue, once we stepped onto the roof of Bryant Park Grill, we decided it would be the perfect place to exchange vows, surrounded on all sides by the city we love. We found most of our other vendors from Style Me Pretty weddings based in New York (even our DJ) and New York Magazine’s vendor section. We loved all our vendors and feel like we really lucked out to have such great people help make our day so special. We also felt like getting married in New York gave us the opportunity to find extremely talented but affordable vendors, and we hope to pay it forward so that other people can discover them, use them and love them like we did on our big day.
We had a non-traditional wedding party and ceremony. MJ got his guys the same green tie and asked them to wear a dark suit they already owned. I got coordinating green jewelery for my girls and told them to wear any dress they wanted. They all looked great, and we can’t take any credit for it! My brother-in-law married us and did an amazing job, and it was so comforting to have someone who’s known us throughout our relationship marry us. We wanted predominantly candid photos to capture the day, and were so amazed with how many great shots Bartosz was able to get. Bartosz shot my sister’s wedding in Greece a few years ago, and after seeing their photos, he was definitely our top choice to photograph the wedding. After looking around a little in New York, we realized it was comparable to have him come from Poland to shoot the wedding, and it was the best choice we made. His energy throughout the weekend and the pictures he shot well exceeded our wildest dreams.
Finding ways to incorporate “us” into the wedding details was definitely my favorite part of planning. Some of the smallest details and crafts were the least expensive things we did, and we got tons of positive feedback on them during and after the wedding. I made petal holders out of New York subway maps so that our guests could shower us with petals after the ceremony, and because we were getting married in the shadow of the library, I spray-painted a couple old steel card catalogs to use for the escort cards MJ made. Our entrance song and cake cutting song were tributes to MJ’s favorite team, the New York Giants, and we incorporated the Giants into a few other details throughout the wedding, including our vows.
Wedding Photography: Bartosz Jastal / Wedding Venue: Bryant Park Grill in New York, New York / Floral Design: Flowers by Emil / Event Planning: The Bride & Groom / Wedding Cake: Christine Polite of Tiney’s Bakeshop / Wedding Invitations: Hello! Lucky / DJ: DJ Gaza / Wedding Dress: Jim Hjelm / Bride’s Shoes: Badgley Mischka / Hair: Tom Lee / Makeup: Sally Duvall