A Non-wedding Wedding at Dinosaur BBQ: Congratulations Laura and Eric!

Laura and Eric are sweet, silly and so much fun. They are also very non-traditional. When Laura contacted me about wedding photography one of the first things she said was, “We’re really excited for a BBQ party (and also that other part, getting married).”

On the day of their celebration, we began by taking some fun casual photos in their neighborhood, starting with the Metro Diner on 100th and Broadway.

Laura shared with me, “We had discussed getting married on and off for awhile, but never really settled any plans. We were at the diner on a Saturday morning in March and I asked Eric if he wanted to get married in October. He said OK. Then we had pancakes. (They were delicious.)”

Next stop: Riverside Park.

Laura continues, “Eric and I met when we were interns at Random House in 2007–he walked to Midtown from Brooklyn on a day the subways flooded because he has an excellent work ethic, and a picnic for the interns got moved from Central Park to the office, so I decided to go since it was easy to get to and the food was free. (Can you tell which one of us is lazier?) We sat together and Eric mentioned that he was going to make cookies for his floor. I let him know that cookies were stupid, no one likes cookies, and everyone likes cupcakes. The next day he showed up at my desk with cupcakes, so I decided to figure out what his name was, and it all went from there. (I only found out much, much later that he ran out of sugar at 2 in the morning and the only 24-hour place near him was a McDonald’s, so he went there, grabbed as many sugar packets as he could carry, and measured out the sugar by opening each packet one by one. (In case you couldn’t tell: I’m the lazy one. Definitely not Eric.)”

After walking through the Upper West Side, it was getting close to party time. Eric and Laura changed into their fancy clothes and we stopped for a few more portraits at the amazing Gothic cathedral, Saint John the Divine.

Laura told me one of the main reasons she decided to get married was so she could get new shoes. I love these teal pumps!

It was now time for some BBQ!

Laura and Eric were originally going to elope, but as she puts it, “We realized we’d probably have to bring my mom, and then we’d have to bring both of our families, and once we got the essential people to New York there would be somewhere around twenty people we’d have to entertain for at least a weekend, so we figured we might as well have a party. We picked Dinosaur Bar-B-Que because it’s delicious and in our neighborhood–everyone we know lives in Brooklyn so it took getting married to get our friends up to our area. I think we were Dino’s first wedding, and I can only hope it wasn’t too traumatizing for them.”

The decorations were so charming. Laura shares, “I wish I could take credit for the party going so well and being so much fun, but I had almost nothing to do with it–after I picked out the menu a friend of mine, Alexis Cariello, made all of the table settings, decorations, place cards, you name it, and the team at Dino went above and beyond to make everything run smoothly. We had an amazing time, and we hope our friends and family did too!”

“Of course as soon as we sent out invitations for October, Eric got a new job so we got legally married on August 17th at the City Clerk’s Office so he could have health insurance (tres romantic, I know). The party was more fun for us that way because it was just a party–no stress, just ribs and drinks and everyone we love in one room.”

Many wonderful toasts were given, but Laura’s brothers definitely made everyone laugh the most with funny stories from their childhood.