What do funny hats, big glasses and big red lips have in common? Funico photo booth FUN! In keeping with our name (FUNico), we’re always on the lookout for new, fun photo ideas. This past weekend, we photographed Crystal & Pete’s wedding at the Valley Regency in Clifton, NJ and as part of the festivities, we set up a photo booth. The boa, fake guns and big moustaches quickly got attention and we had a line of people before we were done setting up!
To Crystal & Pete – many congrats again and we had a blast seeing what your friends & family did with the funny props!
And, of course, we ourselves had to participate as well!
Have you heard about the Wish Upon a Wedding organization? We recently learned about it and immediately volunteered our wedding photography services. It’s a non profit organization that gives weddings and vow renewal ceremonies to couples facing terminal illness or other serious problems. As you can imagine, people in these circumstances do not have the time, money or energy to plan a wedding. With the help of wedding professionals who volunteer their services for free, these couples get a chance to relax and enjoy a very special day with their close friends & family.
In January, Wish Upon a Wedding started a chapter in New Jersey. If you’re a wedding professional, we encourage you to join us to create an event that will celebrate the courage & love of these couples. If not, you can still volunteer or make a donation on their website. There’s also an application on their website if you know a couple who can benefit from Wish Upon A Wedding. To visit their website, go to:
After this long, long winter, we are all looking forward to sunny days and finally breaking out the flip flops! To celebrate the coming of Spring, we’re offering couples a chance to win a full engagement photo session, complete with makeup, at Celebrate at Snug Harbor (package has value of $900). Snug Harbor is the home of the Staten Island Botanical Garden and has some of NYC’s most picturesque landmarks. Little known place, but lots of natural beauty and wonderful architecture to inspire and set the scene for some great photos. We’re excited to be working with Landmark Hospitality and My Cinderella’s Dream on this giveaway and can’t wait to take some fantastic photos of the winning couple! For your chance to win, go to:
Danielle & Chris got married at the W Hotel Union Square a few months ago. We actually photographed Chris’ physical therapist’s wedding a few years ago and as always, we are honored when one of our past brides refers us. Thanks again, Melissa!
To see other images of festivities at the W Hotel, call us at 646 234 8927 or CLICK HERE to contact us.
We love this shot of Dad seeing Danielle for the first time all made up.  As parents ourselves now, we can definitely understand the range of emotions that Dad must be feeling, from pride to sadness that his little girl is all grown up.
While Danielle was getting ready, her soon-to-be hubby was also finishing up his final preparations. Don’t know how to tie a bow tie, guys? There’s an app for that!
After the ceremony at Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church…
…we headed to some nearby landmarks to take pictures. This is Madison Square Park – home of the original Shake Shack and skateboarders who can fill in as extras for your wedding photos!
The W Hotel at Union Square is a great building – a fantastic blend of old and new.  Check out these beautiful high ceilings and wonderful columns on the side. Combine them with low mood light and a great band and you have the perfect setting for a great party.
We always hear feedback from our couples, but this time, we were also pleasantly surprised by an e-mail from Danielle’s Dad. According to Mr. DeMasi, “there are many beautiful photos. Thought you did a great job.” To the Chattin & DeMasi families – many thanks for inviting us to be part of your celebration!
To see more photos from Danielle & Chris’ wedding, click on the image below.
Callan and Bryan from Milwaukee, Wisconsin wanted to have a small NYC destination wedding with some close friends and family. They chose the Jumeirah Essex House hotel since it could accommodate their small intimate wedding ceremony and dinner reception. Plus the hotel has a great midtown Manhattan location! It’s across the street from Central Park and only a few blocks up from Times Square.
They had an intimate ceremony performed by Reverend Will in the hotel’s Petite Salon. Afterward, we took a quick ride to get some photos in Times Square.
We hit a couple of more spots near the hotel and made it back in time for the newlyweds to join the fun at their cocktail hour. We were just in time to catch the impromptu sing-along with the pianist.
The Essexs House is a NYC landmark. We had to get photos of Callan & Bryan in the hotel’s beautiful art deco lobby and hallways.
Jason Kwintner from the Essex House was on hand to make sure everything went smoothly. He even arranged for the town car to take us on our quick photo shoot. If you want more information about their destination wedding packages you should call Jason at 212-484-5140.
Roses are red.  The sky is blue. What better way to show your love than with beautiful photos of you. Last year, Andrew surprised his girlfriend with a Valentine’s Day photo session. Dorothea Lange once said “photography takes an instant out of time, altering life by holding it still.” Andrew – what a fantastic and special gift!
Andrew knew shooting in February would be a little cold, but he didn’t want to wait until Spring. Regardless of the weather, their hearts were warm, the sky was blue and the view from DUMBO was stunning as usual.
To Andrew, Jen & everyone else reading this blog – hope you’re all having a great Valentine’s Day! To see more photos from the shoot in DUMBO click on the image below.
Yay – we’ve been given a WeddingWire’s Bride’s Choice Award 2011!   That means that we’re in the top 5% of wedding professionals based on surveys of 750,000+ WeddingWire newlyweds and that we got a “two thumbs up” for quality, service, responsiveness and professionalism. This is the second year in a row that we’ve received this honor. To our past brides – a big thank you for your kind words!  To our future brides – we promise to keep up the good work.
NYC looked beautiful yesterday after the big snowstorm. Unfortunately, we did not have time to go around the city to take photos of the winter wonderland.  Since it’s the 3rd snowstorm in 3 weeks, the novelty of snow has worn off for many of us. Especially when you car looks like this.
While most parked cars looked like that yesterday, there was one brand new car that was immaculately clean and shoveled out.
Was this the work of a proud owner of a new car?  Or maybe the owner suffers from chionophobia – the fear of snow?   Regardless of the reason, I think we will go put an award certificate on it for being the cleanest car in NYC.
Hooray – 2 of our photos won awards in the latest Wedding Photojournalist Association (WPJA) photo contest. The WPJA is a prestigious organization of wedding photographers. One is an emotional moment between a groom and his dad and the other is an artistic shot of wedding rings.
This photo was captured just after Rebecca and Dan’s ceremony. The judges were touched by, in their words, the “very sweet moment” between the groom and his dad.
We agree. It’s much more common to see such an affectionate display between mother and daughter and we were touched as well by Mr. McFadden.
Rebecca & Dan recently sent us a great thank you card. This is the front of the card – beautiful, isn’t it? Just kidding, we designed the card for the happy couple and they sent it back to us…
…with this very sweet note on the inside.
Rebecca & Dan – thanks so much for the card and the kind words!
The other winning image from the competition was an artistic shot of Janna & Kevin’s wedding rings. The judges loved the “reflection of the word marriage in the ring.” So do we. We used a macro lens to get a very close shot of the rings with words from their wedding invitation reflected on them.
WPJA is a well-respected international organization and we are honored to have them recognize both our photojournalistic and artistic skills.
One of our recent weddings will be on a TV show called Four Weddings. What is Four Weddings? It’s a reality show that features four brides who go to each other’s weddings to determine who had the best wedding. The brides compete against each other for the honeymoon of their dreams. Personally, we think our couple’s wedding was awesome and should easily win the prize.
Kally & George had their wedding reception at the Surf Club in New Rochelle. To chat about photography for your wedding, call us at 646 234 8927 or CLICK HERE to contact us.
Meet beautiful Kally, the bride.
The Greek Orthodox ceremony was in an incredible church.
The wedding reception was at the Surf Club in New Rochelle. Kally made the party favors by hand and had the table numbers lit by candle light.
Their DJ’s lighting helped set the scene from their romantic first dance…
…to a rockin’ party. The blonde in the background is one of the brides that will be rating Kally & George’s wedding. Looks like she was having a great time.
Their reception had lots of dancing with tons of money being thrown around. Literally, because that’s a tradition at Greek weddings.
Greeks consider throwing money at dancers to be good luck. There was a lot of luck in the air that night.
To see more from this wedding click on the image below to see highlights.
Now that you have seen how we captured the wedding, you can watch the show to see how a reality TV depicts it and see how the other brides felt about the wedding. The episode featuring Kally and George will be airing on TLC on January 14 at 7:00 pm and on January 15 at 2:00 am EST. Even though we captured about 2,000 images from their wedding, don’t be surprised if we were not caught on camera. One of our grooms (and a mother of another groom) compared us to ninjas who lurk in the in shadows and miraculously appear when there is an important moment to be captured.
