Real Wedding by James Abel

James is back to share some incredible ideas behind one of his favorite real weddings…

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These days when it comes to weddings you can get as creative as you want to. It’s perfectly acceptable to make your wedding as unique as you are.

When NYC restauranteur David Massoni and his fiance Rachel Bergman came to us to plan their October wedding, we decided to do a true New York wedding with a non-traditional twist. She was from Michigan, he hailed from Maryland, but New York is their home so we wanted to showcase who they are as a couple. The planning of this wedding was a balance between utilizing New York as a backdrop for the event and pulling together the details that were most important to the client.

all photos by Whitney Old

The ceremony was held on the water with views of the Statue of Liberty in the distance. With food and wine being so important to David, we allocated more of the budget to the menu. We decided to have a Sunday morning brunch at a park venue. This allowed us to keep the feeling of the event intimate and elegant. We kept the decorations simple because the setting was spectacular — the venue had large windows overlooking the New York harbor and the park proved the perfect spot for wedding photographs.