New York City Bridals | Samantha

Way back, in the blistering heat of Sam and Blake’s engagement session on the Kemah Boardwalk I mentioned to Sam I’d be in New York City for a photography seminar the week before her wedding and “wouldn’t it be cool if we could shoot your bridal session up there too”. A flurry of activity later and here we are!

Sam and her friends Danielle and Beth had never been to NYC before, and judging by the crowds around us the whole day, New York City had never seen a beautiful Texas girl in a wedding dress – we were swarmed most of the day by people wanting pictures with Sam, of Sam, just to talk to Sam… hmmm. The Italian boys in Little Italy may have been the bravest (some yelling out “Miss Texas!”, offering her special entry to their family restaurants, etc.), tho one guy in a van in Brooklyn claimed Sam was “certifiably the best looking girl he had ever seen, certifiable!” And you know, who would argue with a plumber? 🙂

We began in Brooklyn, walked around upper Brooklyn and took the F train into Manhattan, stopping along the way for some touristy and not-so-touristy spots.

When we got into the subway station, I asked Sam to “stand right over there”, knowing what was about to happen.

Subways push a tremendous amount of air ahead of them through the system, as Sam soon found out. 🙂

😀 Too funny! 😀

Once we emerged from the subway, we headed through China Town to Little Italy, where the Feast of San Genarro was in progress. Similar to our fairs, food and games and crafts carts and lined both sides of the street, except these were full of pizza, canoli, mozzareppa’s (mmm… mozzareppa’s)… any kind of traditional Italian food, they had it. And sold it by the gabbia. 🙂

From there it was a mad dash up Manhattan to Central Park, but first we had to stop and visit with some of New York’s finest:

Pretty cool 🙂 From there it was on to Central Park – lounging at Bethesda Fountain, strolling the Mall and watching as rabid photographers shot over my shoulder, by my shoulder and in front of my shoulder. hehe, we were more than famous – we were infamous! (I apologize for the Three Amigos reference 😉 ).

From there we needed to get to Rockefeller Plaza – problem is, President Obama was in town for the UN Summit and no-one was going fast anywhere. We ended up taking a couple of bicycle rickshaws for the ride down 7th Ave. We got out and spent some time walking through mid-town Manahattan waiting our turn up to the Top of the Rock.

I believe Sam stopped traffic more than the million and one diplomat cars 🙂

Finally, it was our turn at the top of Rockefeller Plaza. It was gorgeous up there with the twinkling lights of Lower Manhattan and soaring Empire State Building as our background:

As our day wound down, we made our way to Times Square, where yes, once again we played center stage in the Broadway play of “hey, photographer doing the papparrazi on a pretty girl in wedding dress, maybe she’s famous!” 🙂

The attention was fun, tho we wore sunglasses and big hats the rest of the weekend to get some privacy. 🙂

All too soon it was over, but that was ok – we had Sam and Blake’s wedding to look forward to the next week! For some more of my favorites from the day (and some behind-the-scenes photos with Sam and her friends), check out the slideshow below, set to a song played at Sam and Blake’s reception: