Not always are engaged couples eager to fool around during their engagement sessions, and even less often they are lucky to find a cool location to dream up some truly unique and hysterical engagement photos. It started with the bride's mom phone call. She knew some of my past wedding clients and enthusiastically recommended her daughter to look at Zorz Studios portfolio. Then followed an in-person consultation with the awesome mom in presence, and the wedding package deal was sealed. Don't you love such moms? She was my best rep during the presentation. :)
Few months forward and we are deciding on the engagement session theme and location. Interestingly enough, there was no talk of hysterical engagement photos. Although I had a traditional after-booking dinner with them, I didn't pick their funny side just yet. We were surely considering something offbeat and planned to visit an abandoned complex for a grungy feel. Two weeks before the shoot, however, Gloria came across a commercial for a temporary installation in Brooklyn called Dream Machine. It's a pop-up photography playground with various rooms (about 10) decorated as dreams. The attraction offers an interactive experience designed to be tactile and shareable, inviting you to let your imagination run wild as you explore the surreal-powered playground. Unlike many cool NYC locations that either require a permit to shoot at or outright prohibit professional photography, this welcoming and forward-thinking venue almost makes you take photos, encouraging every bit of creativity, professional or amateurish, to flourish. Since my abandoned complex isn't running anywhere, it was a much better alternative, still in the offbeat realm!
The fun experience only lasted for one hour so we spent the second hour in the nearby East River State Park, a seven-acre waterfront park offering views of the Manhattan skyline. We'd already had a fair load of hysterical engagement photos so we switched to more magazine-like engagement photos to bring back the glamour and romance, mercilessly abused at the Dream Machine.
Finally, we went to The Blue Room at The Ides Rooftop restaurant of the Wythe Hotel, bringing back the memories of my other couple's speakeasy-inspired wedding featured in The Knot. The restaurant bears the significance of their first date and one of their first "couple photos" was taken there, which we thought would be cute to reenact. These glamorous and hysterical engagement photos surely brought up some talks during their wedding in a few weeks!
