That’s right, it’s Bridal Market time!  Every 6 months your favorite wedding photo+film studio packs up and heads down to NYC to shoot the hottest new wedding dresses by the top designers in the business.  The Knot commissions our team to deliver the best photos from the runway, and we always welcome the challenge even if it’s a big bag of crazy, mixed with stress, toss in tough conditions, and sprinkle it with some fun.

It’s nice because we always get one of the top spots in the house (if only I could get the same seats at Celtics games I’d be in heaven)

I get this spot during the show to capture these images for theknot.com website

Once they are captured and downloaded, the images are immediately uploaded online and printed for spreads and their live show

It’s a pleasure watching Heather and Carly on camera together because they are both so upbeat and oh so knowledgable. Huge shout out to Heather here as she’s a soon to be C+W bride herself!

Alisha is usually able to get invited backstage before the shows and I always love the photojournalistic style she uses to capture the action back there. The woman is insanely talented.

I’ll leave you with a beautiful film commissioned by the team at Alfred Angelo, and one we had a ton of fun with:

On Thursday we were excited to be a part of Bride’s Night Out, an elegant affair for some VIP local brides put together by an all-star team of local professionals. We were asked to get involved in the event, and right from the first lunch I shared with these professionals I knew this event was going to be done right. For me it’s exciting to see local events that are different, and focus more on connecting and making relationships rather than the hustle and run through type atmosphere of a bridal show.

I think the venue (The old Saint John the Baptist Church converted to an event space) set the tone for being unique right from the start. Experience Design had their work cut out for them since the converted church was essentially a blank canvas, but they nailed it.

Northeastern Fine Jewelry was the host for the evening, and they had some beautiful pieces out on display

These drinks by Mansion Catering were absolutely awesome

As part of the evening’s events Angela’s Bridal would be showing off their latest gowns during a fashion show. Alisha was able to sneak in back during the make up and fittings to work her magic

A little cameo by Amy Elizabeth :-) The A&Co team was also back there getting busy!

Once everything was prepped, people sat down to take in all the beautiful dresses

One of the biggest hits of the entire evening was after the show, the models all came out on the runway and guests were invited to come up and take pictures, touch the material, and ask questions. It was very popular!

What event would be complete without a Clark+Walker photobooth though?! Here’s Janet Cooper (owner of Angela’s Bridal) along with Jennifer Raspante, a representative from Lazaro who came all the way up from NYC

The gracious hosts of our event

Meet the new team behind the brand new Adirondack Weddings Magazine

A guest appearance by Lisa Light and her lovely girls :)

Thank you to everyone who came out on Thursday, it was a wonderful event and I cannot wait for version 2.0 that is going to be a grand slam I promise.

As Bridal Market becomes more and more popular, we were encouraged by our good friend Cyd over at The Sweetest Occasion to do a photo story about what a day is like at market. For those of you who don’t know, Bridal Market happens twice a year (April and October) and consists of many of the top wedding dress designers showing of their new line to boutique owners. Those “buyers” then decide which dresses they want to purchase and stock their inventory with. It’s also full of magazine editors, press, and many of the who’s-who in the wedding world who want to see what designers are blowing up.

Clark+Walker is of course the official runway photography provider for The Knot, and we’ve been doing this for several years now. It’s fun (I say that now, but ask me after about the 4th twelve hour day), and because we’ve been doing this for a while we thought it would be a great chance to show people out there who can’t come what it’s all about.

When I usually arrive at my first show nobody is there yet. They are frantic backstage trying to get things ready and meet the showtime. There is of course someone always yelling “10 minutes let’s go people” in the background somewhere. Models do a walk through to make sure everything if flawless before they let the editors and buyers in. The board on the left gives you an idea how much coordination each look gets.

Designers and their staff, like Kenneth Pool, are also putting the finishing touches on the details.

Because we shoot for The Knot we are often times granted backstage access so we get to walk around and experience the whole scene. The rows of models and make up is quite the production

We were also asked to shoot artistic backstage shots for The Knot this market which Alisha and I loved doing.


Once they let the editors and buyers in, the showroom is often packed wall to wall with people catching up and chatting. It’s a great chance for networking and to catch up with people you haven’t seen in a while. Like our friends, Tracy Freedman+ Grace Ormonde from Wedding Style.

Once things start to get closer to show time (which is whenever people arrive) it’s time for me to go back and get set up in my spot. Often times we have to sit in this uncomfortable spot that makes Manhattan apartments feel huge.

Here’s my spot, upfront and dead center. It pays to shoot with the largest wedding resource in the country!

Once the models come out and the show starts, many of the editors are instantly abuzz about what trends they are seeing and what they think of the gowns on the runway

The camera phones are out of control too! Between twitter and the blogs it’s insane what people are doing with these phones

All of this goes on for these shots below (this is from the Oscar De La Renta show)

Once the shows are over we sometimes head back to the office at The Knot. This market we were asked to get some behind the scenes shots of The Knot Live! online broadcast. Yes that’s our runway photos straight off our cards they are pinning up in the background

Here is what Carley and Heather see when they are doing the show. You can catch all of their personalities on theknot.com.

Alright so there is a personal tour of Bridal Market, which I know has become very popular to talk about and be seen. Now you’ll know exactly what’s going on next market this coming October, which will be even bigger than this one!

- Luke

If we’ve been a little quieter than normal it’s because we’re down in NYC shooting all the bridal fashion shows for The Knot. It’s been crazy for me personally (it’s me Luke!) since I’ve been going almost non-stop since Friday morning seeing so many designers and shows that my head is spinning. It’s been an amazing experience, as it always is, visiting with some of my favorite magazine editors, seeing the latest from some of the best dress designers in the world, and having my personal space invaded by some of my closest photographer friends. To check out everything we have going on in real time please check out The Knot’s website right away to see our work:

LINKAGE TO THE GOODIES

You’ll notice that everything now has the Clark+Walker name on it and that’s because our studio now does all of the runway for The Knot. I’ve always worked closely with The Knot in the past but this season has been a whole new experience. It’s great to see our name on everything though and great to know that The Knot has that much trust and faith that we will deliver during some of their most important shoots. Shooting under those conditions, with that pressure, and the editor and chief sitting next to you whispering what she wants shots of…. hell going back to weddings after Market is usually like a vacation :) Check everything out real time on The Knot’s site, and also check out our facebook page for all sorts of updates and funny stories and thoughts. We’ll be doing a great blog recap at the end but The Knot has all our work up almost immediately afterwards to check out in the mean time.

- Luke

As many of you know, we shoot a ton of fashion shows for bridal designers. The Knot hires our studio to go down to Bridal Market twice a year and shoot for them for a week and each market we shoot close to 100 designers. We’ve been doing this for about 4 years now, so the amount of runway and bridal fashion work we’ve done is pretty extensive at this point. I was really excited to break out of our comfort zone this year though, and when Alfred Angelo hired me to do their in-house photography for their Spring 2011 collection I pitched the idea of bringing in our film crew as well. I wanted us to be able to come in and provide people a different perspective of how bridal fashion shows are done, what’s it like backstage, how big are the shows, how do they put together all these looks? We all see the beautiful end of the runway videos that designers put out there, which are always stunning, but I wanted to put together something that I felt would give brides an “insider” view of their favorite collection. Picking the label to pitch this idea too was a no-brainer, Amanda over at Alfred Angelo is one of my favorite people at market and they’re always on top of twitter, facebook, and sharing with their brides. Once I pitched my vision to Amanda she immediately jumped on board and we were given the green light to come in and produce this video.

I’m really excited to share our latest fashion video with you!