The 10 Best Wedding Photographers in NYC (2026)

1. Readyluck — West Village, Manhattan, Manhattan

A collective of New York photographers shooting the day as it happened rather than as it was arranged.

Readyluck describes itself as a collective of New York's wedding photographers and says it chases presence rather than perfection. In practice that means candid coverage instead of a schedule of arranged moments, and a bench deep enough that you are matched with a photographer rather than handed the one person the studio has. Its published work ranges across the city, Brooklyn and Long Island City into the Hudson Valley, the Catskills and Vermont, plus destination weddings.

Two things distinguish it from a single-shooter studio. It will shoot film when the day calls for it rather than treating film as the whole identity, and it runs a pop-up portrait studio that makes black-and-white portraits of your guests during the reception — the rare add-on that guests actually remember. Prices are not published; the studio quotes per wedding.

Good to know: If you want the pop-up portrait studio, raise it while you are still laying out the reception. It needs floor space and a power outlet allocated in the plan, not found on the night.

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2. Brian Dorsey Studios — Manhattan, Manhattan

A long-established Manhattan studio built on documentary coverage, with a serious destination practice.

Brian Dorsey Studios works out of Manhattan and shoots in a documentary register — the day unfolding rather than the day staged. It is one of the longer-running names in New York wedding photography and presents a team rather than a single photographer, which is what you want for a large wedding where two rooms are doing something interesting at once.

It also runs a substantial destination practice. That matters more than it sounds: traveling with gear, working an unfamiliar venue, and having no second chance at the light are all things a studio either has done many times or has not. If your wedding is a weekend abroad rather than an evening in the city, that experience is the thing you are paying for.

Good to know: Marrying abroad? Ask what travel and accommodation add to the quote before you compare it with a local studio's number — that line is where the two diverge.

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3. Sarah Merians Photography & Video Company — Union Square, Manhattan, Manhattan

A full-service photo and video house covering weddings and b'nai mitzvah from one roof.

Sarah Merians runs a boutique full-service studio on Fourth Avenue with photographers and videographers on staff, and the site describes each of their styles separately — romantic and warm, documentary and powerful, cinematic, natural lighting — so you can ask for the one you want rather than hoping. The founder's own bio cites more than 35 years and over 10,000 events.

The practical appeal is coordination. Photography and video come from the same team, with drones, a live-stream option, photo booths, engagement shoots and headshots available from the same place. For a bar or bat mitzvah that breadth is harder to find than it is for a wedding, and it is the reason families come back here for the second child.

Good to know: If you want video, book it here at the same time as the photography. Two companies have to negotiate the same angles on the day; one company has already settled it internally.

111 Fourth Avenue, New York, NY 10003

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4. Chellise Michael Photography — Brooklyn, Brooklyn

Brooklyn-based and film-forward, for couples who want warmth and grain instead of gloss.

Chellise Michael Photography works out of Brooklyn and leads with film. That is a choice about the day as much as the pictures: fewer frames, more deliberate shooting, and a look that is genuinely hard to fake in editing — warmer color, softer highlights, grain you can see.

It suits a loose Brooklyn wedding far better than a minute-by-minute ballroom timeline. If you want a thousand frames covering everything from every angle, a digital-first studio is the better fit. If you want eighty pictures you will actually print and hang, this is the register to be in.

Good to know: Ask how many images you receive and in what mix of film and digital. Film studios deliver fewer frames by design, and knowing that before you compare quotes saves an awkward conversation later.

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5. Susan Shek Photography + Cinema — Midtown Manhattan, Manhattan

Documentary wedding storytelling with cinema kept in-house, from a Manhattan studio.

Susan Shek works in a documentary style — the studio's own framing is storytelling rather than posing — and runs cinema alongside photography rather than subcontracting it. For couples who have decided they want a film of the day as well as pictures, that single point of contact removes an entire category of wedding-morning friction.

A Manhattan base also means the studio knows the city's venues, which is less trivial than it sounds when a ceremony room has no windows and the reception is lit entirely in magenta. Ask to see work from a venue like yours, not just the studio's favorite frames.

Good to know: Ask which photographer and which cinematographer are actually assigned to your date, and look at that person's work rather than the studio reel.

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6. Trent Bailey — By appointment, New York City, Manhattan

Film-led coverage from a photographer who works the city and the Hamptons in equal measure.

Trent Bailey's site describes him as based in New York City and the Hamptons, and that split tells you what the practice is: city weddings and the east-end summer season, with the Hudson Valley in between. The work is film-led, which puts him in the smaller group of New York photographers whose look is built in the camera rather than in the edit.

For a couple marrying out of town but hiring in from the city, that geography is useful — a photographer who already knows the drive, the light at that hour on that stretch of coast, and the venues that will not let you shoot in the garden after nine.

Good to know: If your wedding is out on Long Island in summer, book early. The east-end season compresses into a handful of weekends and the good photographers go first.

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7. Jenny Fu Studio — By appointment, New York City, Manhattan

Editorial, fashion-influenced wedding photography for couples who want their pictures styled.

Jenny Fu Studio comes at a wedding from a fashion and editorial direction, and the results read that way: considered composition, attention to what everyone is wearing and how it falls, portraits that are built rather than grabbed. If you have spent real thought on the dress, the suits and the flowers, this is the register that shows that work.

It is the opposite trade from a pure documentary studio. You will spend more of the day being photographed on purpose, and you will get frames you could run in a magazine. Couples who hate being directed should know that about themselves before booking.

Good to know: Budget real time in the schedule for portraits — an editorial look needs thirty or forty uninterrupted minutes, and it is the first thing a running-late timeline eats.

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8. Charlotte Jenks Lewis — By appointment, New York City, Manhattan

Film-forward work with a deliberately vintage feeling, as her own site describes it.

Charlotte Jenks Lewis describes her work as film-forward, and the appeal is a look that reads as slightly out of time — the sort of frame you would believe had been in a family album for thirty years. For couples who find contemporary wedding photography over-processed, that is the whole argument.

As with every film-led studio here, the trade is volume for character. Expect a smaller, tighter edit, and expect the photographer to say no to a few things a digital shooter would simply spray frames at.

Good to know: Look at a full gallery from one wedding rather than a highlights page. A film studio's consistency across an entire day is the thing worth judging.

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9. Roey Yohai Studios — By appointment, New York City, Manhattan

A two-photographer studio shooting city ballrooms, the Hamptons and destinations, plus mitzvahs.

Roey Yohai Studios presents two photographers — Roey Yohai and Dan Chen — with separate portfolios, so you are choosing a person rather than a brand. The featured work runs through exactly the venues a large New York wedding lands in, from the Brooklyn Museum and Cipriani on South Street to Spring Studios, alongside Blue Hill at Stone Barns and the Parrish in the Hamptons.

It also shows weddings in Lake Como, Napa and Beverly Hills, and a separate mitzvah practice. That combination — big-room competence in the city plus genuine destination work — is a narrower field than the number of studios in New York suggests.

Good to know: Pick the photographer, not just the studio, and put that name in the contract. Two-photographer studios are where couples most often assume they booked the founder.

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10. Khaki Bedford Photography — Brooklyn, Brooklyn

A Brooklyn photographer with a personal, unglossy eye — a single shooter rather than a studio.

Khaki Bedford works out of Brooklyn as an individual photographer rather than a studio with a bench, and that is the reason to hire her: the person whose portfolio you looked at is the person who turns up. For a wedding of eighty people in a restaurant or a loft, that is usually the right shape of vendor.

The work is personal and unfussy rather than polished to a shine, which reads as a relief next to the heavily retouched end of the market. The limit is scale — one photographer cannot be in two rooms, so for a large wedding with simultaneous events ask about a second shooter.

Good to know: For anything over about 150 guests, ask what a second shooter costs. One camera at a big wedding means something is going unphotographed.

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