Christina & Sebastian at Jericho Terrace
There are weddings where the couple tells you exactly what they want, and then spends the whole day proving they meant it.
Christina and Sebastian told us early on that they did not want to spend their wedding posing. They wanted the ceremony to feel like a ceremony. They wanted their families close. And when the music started, they wanted to dance until the lights came up. Everything Mario and I planned for the day was built around protecting that.
What I did not expect was how much of the day they would spend simply paying attention to each other. In a room of a hundred and thirty-four people, they kept finding each other. A hand on a back while someone else was talking. A look across the dance floor. Photographers notice this, because it is the difference between a gallery you have to build and a gallery that is already happening in front of you.
Their day started in Howard Beach, moved to a church in Brooklyn, and ended in a ballroom on Jericho Turnpike in Mineola. Three neighborhoods, one very long and very happy day. Here is how it unfolded.
Getting ready in Howard Beach
We started at the house, which is always my favorite way to begin. Before anyone is dressed, there is a stillness to a wedding morning that never comes back later.
We photographed the details first. The rings. The flowers waiting by the window. Her shoes, her jewelry, the last pins going into her hair. These are the frames couples tell me they did not expect to love, and then frame for the hallway.
Sebastian got ready with the men in his family around him. By the time we came in, everyone was dressed and it was down to the last few things: the jacket, the boutonnière, someone straightening his tie who did not need to straighten his tie. Those moments are quiet and quick, and they are where the nerves live. We stayed out of the way and let them happen.
Then it was Christina’s turn. Her mom helped her into the dress, buttoned the back, handed her the shoes, set the veil. I have photographed that exchange hundreds of times and it has never once been routine. There is a look mothers get when they step back to see their daughter finished, and it lasts about a second and a half.
The first look on the staircase
Christina chose not to do a first look with Sebastian. She wanted the doors of the church to be the first time he saw her.
What she did do was walk down the staircase for her dad, her brother, and her nephew.
I will be honest with you, this is the moment from their whole day I keep coming back to. Three generations of the men in her family standing at the bottom of the stairs, and Christina coming down slowly because the dress made her, and because nobody wanted it to go fast. Her nephew, small enough that the whole thing was mostly above his head, still understood that something was happening.
We stayed on that staircase for the rest of her portraits. When the light and the emotion are already in a place, there is no reason to go looking for a better one.
The ceremony at St. Brigid’s Church, Brooklyn
Christina and Sebastian were married at St. Brigid’s Church in Brooklyn, in a full ceremony with their families around them.
Photographing inside a church asks for a particular kind of discipline. You work with the light you are given, you respect where you can and cannot stand, and you keep quiet. Mario and I shoot churches the way we would want someone to shoot ours. No flash firing through the vows. No stepping into an aisle to chase an angle. The day is not ours.
What that gives you, in exchange, is honesty. The ceremony frames from this wedding look like a ceremony. Sebastian watching the back of the church. Christina’s face when she reached him. Parents in the front pew doing that thing where they try very hard to hold it together for the length of a reading.
After the vows, they stepped out to sign the marriage license, which is one of the most underrated photo moments in a Catholic wedding day. Two people who have just done the enormous thing, sitting at a table doing paperwork, still a little stunned.
Then we brought them back to the altar. First the two of them alone in that empty aisle, which we could not have staged if we tried. Then family portraits, done efficiently, because we had a list ready and a drive ahead of us.
The drive: their own convertible, and an hour to themselves
Most couples spend the gap between the church and the venue in a limo with their bridal party, or in the back of a car answering questions about the timeline.
Christina and Sebastian drove themselves. They had their own convertible waiting, and they took the ride from Brooklyn out to Mineola alone, top down, still in the dress and the suit.
I want to make a case for this, because I think more couples should consider it.
That drive is the only unscheduled hour of your entire wedding day. Everything before it is a countdown and everything after it is a run sheet. Christina and Sebastian used it as the honeymoon before the honeymoon: no vendors, no family, no phone, nobody needing a decision from them. They arrived at Jericho Terrace relaxed, and it showed in every portrait we took in the next hour.
It also gave us a set of images most weddings simply do not produce. A couple in a convertible on a summer afternoon, married for exactly forty minutes, is a photograph that does not need any help from me.
Portraits and cocktail hour at Jericho Terrace
By the time they pulled into Mineola, the day had changed key.
Jericho Terrace gave us space to work before guests arrived, and we used it well. Portraits of Christina and Sebastian first, while the light was still generous. Then the larger family groupings, the maid of honor, the best man, and the ring bearer, who by that hour had opinions about how much longer this was going to take.
Christina had one instruction for the portrait window: let the focus be them. So that is where the time went. Big group photos happened, they happened quickly, and then we handed the rest of the hour back to the two of them.
Cocktail hour is where we usually see couples finally exhale. Christina and Sebastian had a room set aside to eat and rest, and they used about half of it. Then they were out with their guests, working the room, which is the smarter version of a receiving line because you get the hugs without the queue.
That turned out to be the pattern for the rest of the night. Mario and I talked about it on the drive home: neither of us could remember seeing them sit down.
Christina also changed into a second dress before the reception, and we photographed her in it in the ballroom while the room was still empty and set. If you are planning a dress change, build ten minutes into your timeline for exactly this. An empty, fully lit ballroom is a gift and it exists for about a quarter of an hour.
The reception
One hundred and thirty-four guests, and every single one of them on the dance floor at some point.
The entrances set the tone. Then Christina and Sebastian’s first dance, which they had choreographed, and which they committed to completely. There is a difference between a couple performing a routine and a couple enjoying one, and you can see it in their faces.
The parent dances hit hard at this wedding. Christina’s dance with her dad had a weight to it that connected straight back to that staircase in Howard Beach. Sebastian danced with his mom. Christina danced with hers. Speeches followed, funny in the places you would hope and unsteady in the places you would expect.
They did a silent cake cutting, no announcement, no crowd, and I love this trend. It takes three minutes, you still get the photograph, and nobody has to leave the dance floor.
Because the dance floor was the whole point. Christina told us before the wedding that they just wanted to dance the night away, and that is exactly what we shot. Mario and I spent the back half of that reception in the middle of it, close and low, shooting the mess and the joy of it. Those are always the frames couples send to us first when their gallery arrives.
Their plate was mostly untouched. Their friends and family never got a break either. When couples tell me they want a party, I believe about half of them. Christina and Sebastian meant it.
Planning your own Jericho Terrace wedding
A few things we learned photographing this day that may help you:
Give portraits a real window, and protect it. Christina and Sebastian had just over two hours between the ceremony and cocktail hour, and it was the reason nothing felt rushed. If your ceremony and reception are in different boroughs or counties, build the drive into the timeline honestly, not optimistically.
Get ready somewhere that means something. A family home will always beat a hotel room for photographs, because it comes with people in it.
Think about how you travel between locations. Christina and Sebastian drove themselves in their own convertible and it became one of the best decisions of their day. Whether it is a convertible, a classic car, or just the two of you in the back of one car instead of a bus full of people, that drive is your only private hour. Do not give it away.
Decide what you want the day to feel like, and tell your photographer. “Focus on us” and “we want to dance” are more useful instructions than a shot list of fifty poses.
Consider the second dress moment. If you are changing, ask your photographer to grab ten minutes in the empty ballroom. It is one of the best sets of portraits you will get all night.
Photographing weddings at Jericho Terrace and across Long Island
Christina and Sebastian’s wedding was our first at Jericho Terrace, and I hope it is not our last.
I want to say something about the room and the people in it, because photographers are quietly at the mercy of both. A venue can make a wedding day, and it usually does it in ways guests never notice. Jericho Terrace gave us the space and the time to photograph Christina and Sebastian properly before cocktail hour, which is the single most valuable thing a venue can hand a photography team. The ballroom was set and beautiful well before we needed it, so we could steal those empty-room portraits when Christina changed dresses. And the staff moved the night along without ever once stepping into a frame, which sounds like a small thing and is not.
We came in as outsiders, a New Jersey studio shooting a Nassau County wedding, and we were treated like part of the team all night. That matters, and it is worth saying out loud.
We follow our couples wherever their day takes them, and Long Island weddings have become a real and growing part of what we do.
The Team Behind the Day
- Photo & Video — MC Productions Photo & Video
- Venue —
If you are planning a wedding at Jericho Terrace, in Mineola, or anywhere across Nassau County, Mario and I would love to hear about your day. We shoot photojournalistically, with just enough guided posing to make sure you have the portraits you will want in twenty years, and we do photo and video together so that nothing is missed and nobody is in anybody’s way.
Inquire About Your Date
Ivone · MC Productions Photo & Video
ivone@mcproductionsnj.com · 908.591.9927