A Celestial Jewish Wedding at Guastavino’s in New York City

There is a moment at every Guastavino’s wedding when people walk in and stop talking. It happens in the doorway, it lasts about three seconds, and it is the same every time. You come in off 59th Street, under the bridge, through a fairly ordinary entrance, and then the ceiling opens up over you and nobody has anything to say for a moment.

I have photographed this room many times and I still watch for it. Jennifer and Zachary got married here in August, and the thing that made their day different was that they had figured out what the ceiling wanted. Most couples decorate against a space like this. They decorated with it.

Their invitation came in deep navy with gold stars scattered across it and a moon in the corner. That single decision ran through the entire day. It turned up again in the cake, which was ivory with small gold stars pressed into the sides. It turned up in the lighting, which threw points of light across the tile like a sky. By the end of the night the vaults overhead were covered in them. A room built in 1909 out of terracotta and mortar was doing a convincing impression of a planetarium, and it worked because nobody tried to hide the room to get there.

The morning, and why the skyline mattered

They got ready in a hotel suite with a window looking straight down the avenue toward the Chrysler Building. I shot into that window for most of the morning. It is the single most useful thing a getting ready room can give you in this city, and it is worth asking about when you book, because a lot of very expensive suites face an air shaft.

The dress had a soft corset bodice and a full skirt with enough air in it to move. That matters more than it sounds. A skirt with volume gives you something to photograph when somebody spins, and she spun a lot later on.

First look, and fifteen minutes on the street

They did a first look before the ceremony. I push for this at Guastavino’s harder than almost anywhere else, and the reason is not sentiment, it is arithmetic. The venue runs one event per day with a fixed structure: an hour for the ceremony, an hour for cocktails, four hours for dinner and dancing. That is a tight container. Portraits taken after the ceremony come directly out of your cocktail hour, and cocktail hour is where you actually see your guests. Do the pictures first and you get the party back.

We also went outside. The stretch of sidewalk right by the venue sits directly beneath the bridge, and the steelwork overhead gives you something no ballroom can: scale, grit, and a very specific sense of place. Fifteen minutes out there produced frames that could not have been made anywhere else in the world. If you are getting married here, build that time into the timeline and tell your planner it is not optional.

What Rafael Guastavino actually built

It helps to know what you are standing under, because it changes how you light it.

Rafael Guastavino Moreno was born in Valencia in 1842, trained in Barcelona, and came to the United States in 1881. He brought with him a Catalan building technique, the thin tile vault, and spent the rest of his life adapting it for American architecture. The tiles are small, roughly six by twelve inches and under an inch thick, set in overlapping herringbone courses with thin layers of mortar between them. Built correctly they hold themselves up in pure compression, which means the vault can be raised without the timber framework a stone arch would need.

The space itself began as Bridgemarket, a produce market built into the approach of what was then the Blackwell’s Island Bridge. The bridge opened to traffic on March 30, 1909, engineered by Gustav Lindenthal with Henry Hornbostel as architect. The market closed during the Depression and the vaults spent decades as storage for the city. On November 23, 1973, the Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the Queensboro Bridge a landmark, and the designation covered the spaces underneath it. The restaurant opened in 2000 and the room became a private event space in November 2005.

What this means with a camera in your hands: the ceiling is a warm buff terracotta and it eats light. It does not bounce the way a white ballroom does. Every usable photograph in that room at night exists because somebody aimed a light at those arches on purpose. Uplighting is not decoration here, it is the difference between a photograph and a dark shape.

The ceremony

They married under a chuppah built almost entirely of white flowers, set in the center arch so the vaults ran away from it in both directions. They read vows to each other. The glass went under a heel and the room went up, and the aisle back out was loud in the way the best ones are.

Rabbi Brian Denker officiated. Bride and Blossom handled the florals, which across the whole day stayed disciplined: white, cream, ivory, green, and nothing else. In a room with this much texture and this much warm color baked into the walls, that restraint is what keeps it from turning into noise.

Cocktail hour and the room turning over

Guastavino’s has one event a day and vendors get in at nine in the morning, which is why a turnover like this is possible at all. Highstyle Event Rentals brought the furniture, The Finishing Touch handled linens, and by the time the doors opened the room read completely differently than it had an hour earlier.

Gala Productions did the lighting, and they are the venue’s exclusive audio and visual vendor, so they know these arches better than anyone. The warm wash on the tile plus the scatter of small points overhead is the whole look. Take it away and you have a beautiful room that photographs like a basement.

The band, the hora, and the part where the floor breaks

Hank Lane Music played, and MTM Events covered the DJ side. The band came out in red sequin jackets against a room that was entirely ivory and navy, which is a gift. It gave me the only strong color on the floor all night.

The hora is the hardest thing to shoot in this venue and the best reason to have more than one photographer working. Both of them go up on chairs, it happens fast, the crowd closes in, and the light is coming from one direction. You cannot cover it properly from a single position. Everything worth having from those few minutes comes from having two angles at once.

Cake, stairs, and the last hour

The cake came from Everything Lulu, ivory with gold stars set into it, closing the loop that the invitation opened months earlier.

The curved staircase near the entrance is the best portrait spot in the building and it is empty for most of the night. Ten minutes there late in the evening, with the party still audible behind you, produces the quietest pictures of the day. I ask for it at every wedding here.

She changed into a pale blue satin dress for the last stretch and the floor stayed full until the lights came up. Guastavino’s allows an after party until four in the morning, which very few New York venues will do, and it is the reason weddings here tend to end later than the couple planned.

What I would tell you about getting married at Guastavino’s

Some practical things, from having worked this room repeatedly.

It is built for a large guest list. The venue publishes a minimum of 200 guests and a maximum of 400. If you are planning something intimate, this is not your room, and no amount of design will make 90 people fill those arches.

Lighting is the entire budget conversation. I would put money into lighting before almost anything else here. The vaults are the reason you booked the place and they are invisible after dark without it.

The schedule is fixed and tight. One hour ceremony, one hour cocktails, four hours dinner and dancing, one event per day, setup from nine in the morning. Plan portraits around that structure rather than fighting it.

Outside catering is limited. The venue permits outside kosher and Indian caterers. Everything else runs through their kitchen. Ask early if this affects you.

Shoot the street. The bridge is right there. Most galleries from this venue never leave the building, which is a waste of the best exterior in the neighborhood.

Guastavino’s wedding questions, answered

How much does a wedding at Guastavino’s cost?

Guastavino’s does not publish package pricing, and you should be skeptical of any site that quotes a firm number. Venues at this level price by date, season, guest count and menu, and two couples rarely get the same proposal. What the venue does publish is a sample wedding menu with per guest supplements for certain upgrades, plus a stated additional charge for kosher meals prepared by an outside kosher caterer and a reduced rate for children under twelve. Their high season runs April through June and September through December, which is the single biggest lever on your number. Request a written proposal for your actual date and guest count.

How many guests does Guastavino’s hold?

The venue publishes a 200 guest minimum and a 400 guest maximum, with published floor plans at 200, 250, 300 and 350 for both ceremony and dinner configurations, and cocktail layouts covering 200 to 300 and 300 to 400.

Where is Guastavino’s and what makes the building significant?

It occupies the vaulted space beneath the Manhattan approach of the Ed Koch Queensboro Bridge on East 59th Street. The tile vaulting is the work of Rafael Guastavino, the Valencia born architect who introduced Catalan thin tile vaulting to the United States in the 1880s. The bridge opened in 1909 and was designated a New York City landmark on November 23, 1973, a designation that covered the areas beneath it.

Can you have a Jewish wedding at Guastavino’s?

Yes. Jennifer and Zachary held a chuppah ceremony and a full hora here. The venue permits outside kosher catering, and the central arch takes a chuppah well because the vaults frame it from both sides. The room is also tall enough that lifting both partners on chairs is not a problem, which is not true of every ballroom.

How late can a wedding at Guastavino’s run?

The standard reception is one hour of ceremony, one hour of cocktails and four hours of dinner and dancing, with an after party available until 4:00 AM. That after party window is unusually generous for Manhattan.

Do you need special lighting at Guastavino’s?

In my experience, yes, and it is the highest impact money you will spend. The terracotta vaults absorb light rather than reflecting it. Gala Productions is the venue’s exclusive audio visual vendor and knows the room. Skip the lighting design and the ceiling you booked the venue for disappears in your evening photographs.

The team

Photography Julian Ribinik Photography · @julianribinikstudios
Venue Guastavino’s · @guastavinosnyc
Planning La Bella Planners · @labellaplanners
Floral design Bride & Blossom · @brideandblossom
Officiant Rabbi Brian Denker · @rabbi.brian
Cinematography Roey Yadgar Films · @roeyyadgarfilms
Band Hank Lane Music · @hanklanemusic
DJ MTM Events · @mtmevents
Lighting and AV Gala Productions · @galaproductionsnyc
Hair and makeup SB Beauty · @sbbeautynyc
Stationery Proper Notice · @propernotice
Linens The Finishing Touch · @thefinishingtouchny
Rentals Highstyle Event Rentals · @highstylerentals
Cake Everything Lulu · @everythinglulu
Photo booth JJ Pixx Photo Booth · @jjpixxphotobooth

More from this venue: the full Guastavino’s wedding venue guide, and additional galleries from Nick and Max’s black tie wedding, Rachel and Peter, Michela and Charles, Anna and Dean and Alex and Zach. If you are still choosing a venue, my guide to luxury wedding venues in NYC covers the rest of the field, and you can see more of my NYC wedding photography across the site.