St. Regis New York Wedding: Paola and Jorge’s Mexican Catholic Celebration

The St. Regis New York is one of those rooms that does not need help. The Roof Ballroom has a painted sky on the ceiling, gilt moldings, and enough crystal to light itself. As a New York wedding photographer I have photographed a lot of Manhattan hotels, and this one asks less of a design team than almost any of them.

Paola and Jorge still brought a florist who suspended an entire canopy of white orchids and hanging amaranthus beneath that painted sky, and then filled the room with guests in emerald, magenta, fuchsia and yellow. Against an all-white room and a gold ceiling, the effect was the opposite of restrained.

They married earlier that afternoon at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, in a Mexican Catholic ceremony with arras, a lazo and five pairs of padrinos. Their families had traveled from Mexico. The whole day ran between two of the most photographed buildings on Fifth Avenue, and it is one of my favorite New York weddings to talk about, because so little of it was about the venues themselves.

Grade Four, and Then Seven Years

Paola and Jorge met in the fourth grade. They were connected properly through mutual friends years later and started dating in their second to last year of high school, then dated for seven years before he proposed.

The proposal was staged at their hometown country club under the cover of a family dinner. Paola arrived expecting a meal and was collected by a golf cart instead, which she went along with, not suspecting anything. Waiting on the course were floral arches, a sign asking the question, and a puppy in a basket. She said yes immediately, and the two families had dinner together afterwards.

Getting Ready at The Plaza and the St. Regis

They split the morning between two hotels, The Plaza and the St. Regis, which is a practical choice more couples should consider when both families are traveling in. It gives each side room to breathe and it gives me two very different sets of interiors before anyone has left for the ceremony.

Paola wore Pronovias. The ceremony gown was high-necked and long-sleeved in heavy lace, with a cathedral veil built for a building the size of St. Patrick’s. Hair was Walton Nunez, makeup by Atelier Bridal Makeup NYC.

The Ceremony at St. Patrick’s Cathedral

St. Patrick’s is an enormous room and it swallows a wedding that is not ready for it. The nave runs a long way, the light comes from high stained glass rather than from any direction useful to a photographer, and there is no flash. What works there is scale: a long veil, a long aisle, and enough distance to let the architecture do the work.

The Mexican Catholic Traditions, and Why They Matter to Photograph

This is the part of the day I would tell any photographer to prepare for, because if you do not know the order you will miss it. In a Mexican Catholic wedding, five pairs of close friends or family, the padrinos, come forward during the ceremony to present five things. Each one has its own moment, and each one happens quickly.

The rings come first, as a tangible promise of fidelity.

The arras, thirteen coins, are presented by the groom to the bride. The number stands for Jesus and the twelve apostles, and the gesture is about prosperity and about sharing whatever the couple has. It is a physical exchange, hand to hand, and it photographs beautifully if you are standing in the right place.

The lazo is a figure of eight, sometimes rope and sometimes a floral garland, placed over the couple’s shoulders after the vows to bind them together. It stays in place for a portion of the ceremony, which means it is one of the few tradition moments you get more than three seconds with.

The Bible marks the spiritual side of the union.

The bouquet is offered to the Virgin Mary, a moment of devotion that usually happens away from the altar and is easy to miss entirely if nobody has told you it is coming.

Ten people move through the ceremony in sequence to make this happen. If you are planning a Mexican Catholic wedding in New York, walk your photographer through the order in advance. If you are the photographer, ask.

Photographing a Cathedral You Cannot Light

A few practical notes on St. Patrick’s, because it is a difficult room and couples rarely get told so beforehand.

There is no flash. The light comes from clerestory windows a long way up and from whatever the cathedral has switched on, which means it falls from above rather than from anywhere flattering. The nave is long enough that a standard lens will not reach the altar from the back, and there are limits on where a photographer may stand, which vary and are enforced.

What this adds up to is that a cathedral ceremony is shot with fast primes, from fixed positions, at whatever ISO the room demands. It is not a room you control. It is a room you read. The compensation is that the architecture is so strong that a wide frame of a bride at the end of that aisle needs nothing else in it.

A Destination Wedding, Pointed at New York

Most of what gets written about destination weddings assumes the couple is leaving somewhere to get married somewhere prettier. This was the reverse. Paola and Jorge and much of their family are Mexican, and the destination they chose was Manhattan.

That changes the job in ways worth naming. When a wedding is a destination for most of the guest list, the day is not the only thing you are photographing. People have flown in, they are seeing each other for the first time in a while, and a lot of the emotional weight of the weekend sits in the hours around the wedding rather than in the ceremony itself. Splitting the morning across The Plaza and the St. Regis was partly a practical decision about space and partly about giving two families their own room to arrive in.

It also means the city is a character rather than a backdrop. Fifth Avenue between the cathedral and the hotel is not a neutral stretch of pavement to these guests. It is the reason they came. Photographing a couple crossing it in a wedding dress, with the Rolls waiting and Midtown carrying on around them, is the picture that says where this happened, and no amount of ballroom coverage replaces it.

If you are planning something similar, build the timeline with the travel in mind rather than around it. Leave time in the morning for people to find each other. Leave time on the street. The ceremony and the reception will take care of themselves.

Fifth Avenue Between Two Buildings

The walk between St. Patrick’s and the St. Regis is short, and it is some of the best coverage of the day. There was a vintage white Rolls Royce, a blush floral installation built over the hotel entrance on Fifth Avenue, and enough of Midtown carrying on around them to remind you where you are. We took a detour into Central Park for portraits before the reception.

The Roof Ballroom

The St. Regis Roof Ballroom is the reason couples book this hotel. The ceiling is painted as an open sky, the moldings are gilt, and the chandeliers are original in feel if not in fact. It is a baroque room and it is not subtle.

Seasons Flowers NYC hung a canopy of white orchids and trailing amaranthus across the center of it, low enough to sit inside the frame with the ceiling above. Tables were mirrored, which doubles every candle in the room and is the single most useful decision anyone made for the photographs. Crystal candelabra, white roses and hydrangea, gold chargers.

The Color Came From the Guests

The design brief for the room was essentially white. White orchids, white roses, hydrangea, cream linen, gold and mirror. On paper that reads as restrained, and in most rooms it would be.

What happened instead is that the guests brought the color. Emerald, magenta, fuchsia, a yellow that carried straight across the ballroom, floral prints, jewel tones on every side of the dance floor. Against an all white room under a gold ceiling, the effect was closer to a garden than to the minimal palette the flowers suggested.

I mention it because couples often plan a palette for the room and forget that two hundred people are also going to be in the frame. If your families dress with confidence, and Mexican families generally do, you do not need color in the flowers. You need a room that will take it.

Ladurée, a Sabre, and a Band from the 1940s

The cake came from Ladurée, tiered and piped and set on a stand rather than a table. It was cut with a sabre, which is not something I am asked to photograph often and which produces a much better set of frames than a cake knife.

Fleur Seule played the evening. They are a New York band that works in the 1930s and 40s idiom, and the singer performed in a gold beaded gown that matched the room so exactly it looked deliberate. Between sets, DJ Carlos Hernandez kept the floor going.

The Second Gown

Paola changed for the dancing into a second Pronovias gown, more fitted and heavily beaded, with a flat collar. Both dresses were Pronovias, and the change reads as a shift in register rather than a costume change: the first built for a cathedral, the second built for a dance floor.

The parent dances ran long. Guests stayed on the floor. The room, being mirrored underfoot and gilt overhead, reflected all of it twice.

What I’d Tell You About Photographing the St. Regis

The ballroom is dark, and that is the point

The Roof Ballroom is lit by chandeliers and candles rather than daylight. It is warm, it is low, and it rewards fast glass and a photographer who is comfortable working at high ISO rather than lighting the room flat. If someone tells you they will bring in enough light to shoot it like an afternoon, ask them why they would want to.

Mirrored tables are worth the money

This is the most practical thing I can tell you about styling a room like this. Mirrored tops double every candle and every flower, and they turn a dark room into a bright frame. In this ballroom it made the difference between handsome photographs and spectacular ones.

Two hotels can be better than one

Getting ready at The Plaza and the St. Regis rather than squeezing everyone into one suite gave both families space and gave the morning two visual registers. If your families are traveling in, it is worth the extra logistics.

Build in the walk

The distance between St. Patrick’s and the St. Regis is short enough to walk and interesting enough to shoot. Ask your planner to protect fifteen minutes for it rather than moving everyone straight into cars.

Know the ceremony order

For a Mexican Catholic ceremony, the padrinos sequence is the heart of the day and it moves fast. Anyone photographing it should know what is coming and where to stand before the first pair steps forward.

St. Regis New York Wedding FAQs

How much does a wedding at the St. Regis New York cost?

The St. Regis does not publish wedding pricing, and I would be wary of any specific figure you find online. Luxury Manhattan hotels quote by date, guest count, food and beverage minimum and season rather than from a rate card, and the number moves substantially between a Saturday in October and a weekday in January. What is dependable is the shape of it: the food and beverage minimum drives the total, production and florals sit on top, and the room itself needs less decoration than most, which is a genuine saving. Ask for a written proposal for your own date.

Can you get married at St. Patrick’s Cathedral and hold the reception at the St. Regis?

Yes, and Paola and Jorge did exactly that. The cathedral sits on Fifth Avenue between 50th and 51st, and the St. Regis is at 55th and Fifth, a walk of about five minutes. St. Patrick’s has its own requirements for couples marrying there, which are handled through the cathedral rather than through your venue, so start that conversation early.

What is the St. Regis Roof Ballroom like for photographs?

It is a baroque room with a painted sky ceiling, gilt detailing and chandelier lighting. It is warm and dark rather than bright, which suits candlelight and works against flat lighting. Because the room is already ornate, it carries minimal florals well, and anything reflective, particularly mirrored tabletops, multiplies the light you have.

Where did the couple get ready?

Between The Plaza Hotel and the St. Regis, splitting the two families across two properties a few blocks apart.

What does a Mexican Catholic wedding ceremony involve?

Five pairs of padrinos present the rings, the arras or thirteen coins, the lazo or lasso, the Bible, and a bouquet offered to the Virgin Mary. Each carries its own meaning, from fidelity and prosperity to the binding of the couple and a request for blessing. The traditions sit inside a standard Catholic ceremony rather than replacing any part of it.

Vendors

Photography: Julian Ribinik Studios · @julianribinikstudios
Ceremony venue: St. Patrick’s Cathedral NYC · @stpatrickscathedral
Reception venue: The St. Regis New York · @stregisnewyork
Getting ready: The Plaza Hotel and the St. Regis New York
Planning: Luis Grajeda
Florals: Seasons Flowers NYC · @seasonsflowersnyc_official
Video: Frank Ahn Films · @frankahnfilms
Band: Fleur Seule · @fleurseule
DJ: Carlos Hernandez · @djcarloshdez
Cake: Ladurée · @laduree
Gowns: Pronovias · @pronovias
Makeup: Atelier Bridal Makeup NYC · @atelierbridalmakeup
Hair: Walton Nunez
Lighting: Gilberto Osele
Rentals: A1 Party and Tent Rentals of NYC · @a1partynyc
Dance floor: Dance Floor Kings · @dancefloorkings
Audio visual: Soundhouse AV Rentals · @soundhousenyc

Paola and Jorge’s wedding was featured by Wedded Wonderland.

Planning your own celebration here? Start with my full St. Regis New York wedding guide, browse more of my NYC wedding photography, or see the rest of my favorite luxury wedding venues in NYC. I would love to hear about your day.