Some wedding days are built around grand gestures and guest lists. And then there are days like this one — intimate, intentional, and so completely the couple’s own that every frame practically tells the story itself. This is the kind of work we live for at Big Shot Bun Company. And this particular day happened to fall on May the Fourth, which — given the lightsabers — felt like fate.
The Boston Public Library as a wedding venue — and why it works so beautifully.
If you’ve never considered the Boston Public Library as a place to get married, let this be your sign. The BPL’s Guastavino Room is one of the most architecturally stunning spaces in the city — vaulted terracotta ceilings, warm ambient light, walls of books stacked two stories high, and a sense of history and gravitas that no purpose-built wedding venue can replicate. It’s the kind of room that makes every image feel like it was composed by someone who really thought about it — even when the moment is completely spontaneous.
We have photographed a lot of weddings in Boston, across New England, and beyond. The Boston Public Library consistently produces some of the most extraordinary images of any venue we visit. The light inside the Guastavino Room is exceptional. The exterior steps on Copley Square frame a couple against some of the most iconic architecture in the city. And the proximity to the Public Garden — with its willow trees, its lagoon, its quiet benches — means that within a few blocks, you have an entire visual world to move through.
For couples planning a micro wedding or elopement in Boston, it’s one of the first locations we recommend.
What this day actually looked like.
It started with a first look on the Mall — a groom turning around on a sun-drenched path between the brownstones of Back Bay, and a laugh that said everything before a single word was spoken. That moment alone was worth the whole day.
From there, the ceremony took place inside the Guastavino Room — an intimate gathering, just the people who mattered most, surrounded by floor-to-ceiling books and flanked by lush floral arrangements that felt perfectly at home in the space. The first kiss happened under all of it. Quiet, real, and completely theirs.
After the ceremony, we moved through the room — up the staircase, onto the mezzanine level with its rows of leather-bound volumes. And then back outside, into the afternoon light, for a walk through the Public Garden that ended on a bench beneath the willows as the light went golden and soft and the whole day finally exhaled.
And yes — there were lightsabers. Because it was May the Fourth, and because these two were exactly that kind of people. It was perfect.
Why we love shooting micro weddings and elopements.
There is something that happens at an intimate wedding that is entirely its own. When the guest list is small and the day is built close to the ground — around the people who matter most and a location that actually means something — a particular kind of honesty emerges. Not because bigger celebrations don’t have it, but because there’s nowhere for it to hide. Every moment lands a little harder. Every glance, every laugh, every quiet beat between the two of you fills the frame completely.
Micro weddings and elopements are not a compromise. They are a choice — a deliberate, considered decision to build a day around what actually matters. And from where we stand, behind the camera, they produce some of the most powerful, most honest, most genuinely moving work in our portfolio.
We are available to shoot anywhere — and we mean that. We have worked all over the world, and we will go wherever your day takes us. Boston, Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard, Nantucket, Newport, Providence, the Berkshires, the Hamptons, Hudson Valley, New York City — and well beyond. Every location brings something different. Every couple brings something that can’t be replicated. That’s not a coincidence — it’s what happens when people stop trying to recreate someone else’s wedding and start building something that belongs entirely to them.
Boston, Newport, and New York City — three of our favorite cities for intimate weddings.
If you’re considering an elopement or micro wedding and wondering where to do it, here are three cities we return to again and again — and why.
Boston is an extraordinary city for intimate weddings. The architecture alone — the BPL, the brownstones of Back Bay, the cobblestones of Beacon Hill, the greenery of the Public Garden — gives every session a built-in visual richness. Add the fact that Boston is a walkable city with an incredibly dense concentration of beautiful locations within a few blocks of each other, and you have a photographer’s dream. The Boston Public Library, in particular, is a venue that punches well above its weight for micro weddings and elopements.
Newport, Rhode Island is one of the most visually compelling wedding destinations on the East Coast. The Gilded Age mansions, the Cliff Walk, the harbor, the historic downtown — Newport has a layered, storied quality that makes every image feel considered. For couples who want something that feels grand without requiring a 200-person guest list, Newport is nearly unmatched. An intimate ceremony at a Newport estate followed by a walk along the Cliff Walk at golden hour is, in our professional opinion, one of the finest things you can do with a wedding day.
New York City is in a category of its own. The energy, the architecture, the sheer visual density of the city — it gives elopements and micro weddings a cinematic quality that’s impossible to replicate anywhere else. Central Park at golden hour. The bridges of Brooklyn. A rooftop at dusk. A quiet moment in the West Village between the noise of everything else.
If any of this is what you’re dreaming of.
We offer elopement and micro wedding packages designed for couples who want something intimate, intentional, and beautifully documented. No filler, no formula — just a bespoke approach built around your day, your people, and your story.
Whether you’re planning something in Boston, Newport, New York City, or anywhere across New England and the Northeast — we would love to hear about it.
Link in bio, or find us at www.bigshotbuncompany.com.
Some days remind you exactly why you do this work. May the Fourth at the Boston Public Library was one of them.
