F&F Restaurant Wedding : Carroll Gardens : Brooklyn, NY
There's a particular kind of wedding that gets everything right by keeping it simple. Long tables, good wine, excellent food, and the people who matter most — pressed in close, talking too loud, laughing at the right moments. F&F Restaurant in Carroll Gardens is built for exactly that kind of evening.
That's what F&F Restaurant in Carroll Gardens does. A sibling to the beloved Frankie's Spuntino just down the block, it carries the same unhurried soul: dark wood paneling, globe pendants casting pools of honey-colored light, the kind of place where you feel like you've been let in on a secret. For a small, intimate Brooklyn wedding reception, it is very nearly perfect.
Before guests arrived, the tables held charcuterie boards, hunks of bread still warm, olive oil in green glass bottles. The couple did family photos just outside on the Carroll Gardens sidewalk — the muted green of the façade making an unexpectedly lovely backdrop — before taking a quick walk through the neighborhood while their guests filtered down the street behind them, the way things happen when no one is rushing.
Inside, the room filled up gradually, then completely. There were toasts, the bride holding the microphone while the groom watched from his seat with the expression of someone being reminded of something he already knew. Later, wine deep into the evening, jackets off, ties loosened, they danced — not a choreographed first dance but the real kind, surrounded by family, everyone a little disheveled and entirely happy.
Shooting a wedding at F&F as a Brooklyn wedding photographer means working in low, directional ambient light in a space where you're often inches from your subjects. Flash would flatten everything — the shadows on the paneled walls, the warmth in someone's face as they laugh across the table. So I shot without it, and let the room do what it was already doing so well.
Vendors
Planning: Bridget Mary Weddings & Events
Venue: F&F Restaurant, Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn
