Champagne at Midnight: A New Year's Eve Wedding Story

Maggie & Tyler climbed onto the band stage at the Garden City Hotel to lead the midnight toast, glasses raised as the final seconds of the year ticked away. The whole room counting down with them, champagne bubbling, the kind of collective joy that only happens when you're all suspended in the same perfect moment together. Garden City, NY.

The winter solstice is always the most magical time of year for me. A womblike energy envelopes us and we’re given the invitation to go deep into the dark spaces inside ourselves and find ways to celebrate them. It’s a time of both reflection and celebration. Often this is the beginning of my off-season and I relish in the chance to quietly cocoon and nurture my dreamwork (you can read more about dreaming practices here), but every once in a while a brave and generous couple throws a massive celebration on New Years’ Eve and I have to say, it’s one of my favorite ways to ring in the New Year.

Some of the guests decked out in festive hats and beads that Gabrielle and her team at The Wedding Connection passed out shortly before the ball dropped. I love watching this transformation happen—elegant wedding guests suddenly letting loose, throwing on sparkly accessories, getting goofy with props. It's the moment when everyone remembers this isn't just a wedding, it's New Year's Eve, and all bets are off.

For guests, a New Year's Eve wedding is a gift and a gamble in equal measure. On one hand, you're invited into something rare—a chance to witness a couple beginning their marriage as the clock strikes midnight, surrounded by champagne and confetti and the collective energy of everyone you love counting down together. There's no need to scramble for plans or worry about what to wear; the celebration is handed to you, complete with drama and sparkle built right in. But it also asks something of you. You're giving up your own New Year's traditions, competing with family obligations and standing plans with old friends. Travel is expensive during the holidays, hotels book up fast, and if you have kids, finding a babysitter on December 31st borders on impossible. The wedding becomes your entire New Year's Eve, which feels wonderful if you adore the couple and daunting if you're on the fence. And let's be honest—the pressure's on the couple to deliver something truly memorable, because everyone's comparing it to the wild NYE party they could have been at instead. For guests who show up, though, the reward is unforgettable—a wedding that feels like the main event of the year, where the energy peaks exactly when it should and everyone leaves feeling like they've just witnessed something extraordinary.

Maggie & Tyler prepared and practiced an epic first dance with a jaw-dropping closing lift and spin moment that I was magically positioned perfectly to capture. Sometimes everything just aligns—the light, the angle, the exact split second when they're fully extended in the air. I love when couples commit to a choreographed moment like this. The risk, the trust, the payoff when they stick the landing and everyone loses their minds. It became one of those unforgettable highlights of the night, the kind of moment guests will be talking about for years.

As a photographer, New Year's Eve weddings require a different energy. You're not just documenting a wedding—you're capturing an entire holiday, complete with countdowns and champagne toasts and confetti explosions timed to the second. There's an urgency to these celebrations that I find exhilarating. Everything builds toward midnight, and when that moment arrives, you have one shot to capture it. The room erupts, guests are throwing confetti, couples are kissing as the clock strikes twelve, and somewhere in all that chaos, you're hunting for the frame that holds it all together. Maggie and Tyler's wedding at the Garden City Hotel was a masterclass in how to embrace that energy—they leaned into every dramatic moment, from their show-stopping first dance to the glittering midnight celebration, all while staying completely present to each other and their guests.

Maggie wearing a New Years' Eve tiara and holding a kazoo. By this point in the night, all pretense of elegant wedding had dissolved into pure joy. This is what happens when you give yourself permission to just have fun at your own party.

None of this magic happens without a planner who understands the intricate choreography a New Year's Eve wedding demands. Gabrielle and her team at The Wedding Connection orchestrated every detail with the kind of precision that makes everything look effortless—coordinating dinner service, speeches, and that show-stopping first dance while building momentum toward the midnight crescendo. NYE weddings are logistically complex in ways most couples don't anticipate: you're synchronizing champagne pours for hundreds of guests, timing confetti cannons to the exact stroke of twelve, distributing festive props at just the right moment so the energy shifts from elegant wedding to full celebration mode. A planner like Gabrielle doesn't just manage the timeline—she reads the room, adjusts on the fly, and ensures that when midnight arrives, every single element is in place. The sparkly hats and beads appeared exactly when they should have. The champagne was poured. The countdown happened seamlessly. And Maggie and Tyler got to be fully present for all of it, trusting that their vision was being executed flawlessly behind the scenes.

A view of Maggie & Tyler from the band's perspective. I'm always looking for angles that show couples differently—not just how they see their guests, but how their guests see them. From up here on the stage, you get the full scope of the celebration: the packed dance floor, the energy radiating outward, the way a couple becomes the absolute center of their universe for one night. It's a reminder that weddings are performances in the best sense—not staged or fake, but moments witnessed and held by everyone in the room.

Photographing Maggie and Tyler's New Year's Eve wedding reminded me why I love this work—bearing witness to couples brave enough to claim one of the year's biggest nights as their own, and generous enough to invite everyone they love to celebrate alongside them. These are the weddings that stay with you, the ones where everything aligns and you walk away feeling like you've just documented something truly extraordinary.

Guests downing a few shots before enjoying the party.

A guest joyfully repurposed his cane to use for a limbo line.

I love these unscripted moments—the ones where guests take over and create their own entertainment beyond what any planner could orchestrate. Gabrielle provided the sparkly hats and beads that got everyone in the spirit, but this? This was pure spontaneous joy —shots, limbo, and someone clever enough to realize a cane makes a perfect limbo bar. By this point in the night, the formal wedding had fully dissolved into a party, and the guests were fully inspired to add to the fun.

The cake cut, the toasts made, midnight behind them. Just the two of them in soft focus, exactly as they should be.

View the complete gallery from Maggie & Tyler's Garden City Hotel wedding | View their Central Park engagement session

Venue: Garden City Hotel
Day-of Coordination: The Wedding Connection NYC
Entertainment: Marcus Reid Band
Florals: Wicks Florist
Photography: Carey MacArthur Photography
Videography: Florescio Films
Uplighting & Draping: Ambient Events
Makeup: GC Glam
Church: St. Agnes Cathedral