So when John reached out again, this time to ask if I'd travel north for their wedding day, there was no version of me that said no, and thankfully, I was available!

Their wedding took place on a private riverfront estate in the Hudson Valley, a part of upstate New York I'd never photographed before, and I could not have asked for a more fitting introduction to it. As a Hudson Valley wedding photographer coming from Puerto Rico, I'm always curious how a new landscape will shape a day, and this one shaped it with bright light, green hills rolling down to the water, and enough charm in this quirky upstate NY wedding venue itself that it felt like the house had been waiting for a celebration like theirs.

An Intimate Morning of Getting Ready

With only over 20 guests -all relatives or best friends- this was very much a micro wedding, and everything about the morning matched that intention. Aliyah got ready upstairs with her sisters; her friends helped me find and set up the wedding dress. The wedding details were full of DIY, hand-embroidered elements, family heirlooms, and many something-borrowed​

Down another wing of the house, John was walking around, completing tasks and tending to arriving guests before getting ready. I found a quiet moment and took him outside to the gardens and walkways, so we could complete his look and get him focused on the upcoming ceremony.

Meanwhile, parents and in-laws helped set the arch and chairs out by the river, organized the kitchen for the caterer, and kept the kids entertained during the waiting time. Everyone had a task and kept themselves busy.

As for myself, I worked on my steps count; wandering around, making myself useful when needed, and documenting mundane family interactions that still felt so intimate and sacred.

Wedding Ceremony on the Hudson River Lawn

The ceremony took place at noon on the open lawn, with a simple white floral arch framing the Hudson River behind Aliyah and John as they exchanged vows. Rachel, a close friend of the couple, officiated, and her warmth was really the heartbeat of the ceremony.

She brought exactly the tone Aliyah and John had described to me months earlier: intentional, heartfelt, but never stiff or overly formal. Their guests gathered in a small semicircle of white chairs, the river stretched out behind them, and for about twenty minutes, everything else fell away.

Portraits at This Upstate NY Wedding Venue

After the ceremony, we spent time taking family group photos by the river before they headed up, then just the newlyweds, wandering the property. We walked the lawn while John carried the train of her dress, we found quiet corners by the water, and I kept getting distracted, as I often do, by how alive everything felt. Songbirds were in constant company, the clouds moved like something out of a painting, and upstate New York in June turned out to be extraordinarily generous with its light.

Family, First Dances, and a Surprise Upstate NY Wedding Guest

The family portrait list for this wedding was long in the best way: siblings, grandmothers on both sides, a flower girl and ring bearer, aunts and uncles gathered from both families. Twenty-two guests meant every single person mattered in the photos, and it showed in how present everyone was.

Their first dances followed that same intimacy: Aliyah and John together, then Aliyah with her father, then John with his mother, all on a stone patio at the edge of the water. And then, mid mother-and-son dance, a black bear cub wandered into view near the treeline. My first-ever bear sighting, and somehow it fit perfectly into a day that already felt touched by something a little magical.

I navigated how to stay focused with excitement for the sighting and a chill down my spine, thinking that we'd been taking family portraits with children and elderly guests exactly at the spot the bear cub appeared. That, and also waiting for the bigger, mama-bear-sized shoe to drop, but we didn't see any additional bears that evening.

An Evening Built Around Togetherness

The rest of the evening unfolded exactly the way Aliyah and John had described wanting it to feel when we first spoke: relaxed, family-focused, unhurried. Dinner, then lawn games, then dessert, then an open evening of swimming, a fire pit, and more lawn games as the light softened toward sunset. There was no rigid schedule pulling anyone away from each other. Just a group of people who love this couple, together on a riverbank, until the sky turned gold and I packed up my cameras for the night.

A Small Hudson Valley Wedding, A Big Circle

I think about this wedding as proof of something I believe deeply about this work: the most memorable days aren't always the largest ones. Twenty-two people on a lawn beside the Hudson River, a friend officiating with real warmth, family gathered around the stairs to see a choreographed dance and a wedding crasher bear cub. None of it needed to be bigger to matter more.

Being trusted to photograph both the beginning of this story, on a fort wall in San Juan, and its next chapter, on a hillside above the Hudson, is exactly the kind of full-circle work that reminds me why I do this job across state lines and oceans alike.

xo,
Cami