About the studio

Based in New York and Lisbon, Ira Lippke Studios provides timeless photography for weddings in New York, Europe and other exquisite destinations around the world.

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We are known for documenting the beauty, love and full range of emotions inherent in every event.

Originally founded in Los Angeles in 1993 by photographer and creative visionary Ira Lippke, the studio relocated in 2007 to New York, where it attracted the attention of some of the world’s leading families and prominent tastemakers. In 2018, Lina Shteyn became a lead photographer with the studio, bringing an innate European sensibility and calm confidence to every event she shoots.

Known for documenting the beauty, love and full range of emotions inherent in every event through a multigenre photographic approach, the studio’s images have come to be considered iconic in the wedding world, and photographers who have been mentored by and worked alongside Ira have become leading lights in the industry.

our story

Ira Lippke Studios is based in New York and Lisbon.

With a new outpost in the stylish Portuguese capital of Lisbon, Ira Lippke Studios is now poised to offer expanded service to clients who seek European experiences delivered with the expertise and efficiency of a seasoned New York professional.

This gives clients the best of both worlds, with no additional travel fees within New York City or anywhere in Europe.

“If a photographer cares about the people before the lens and is compassionate, much is given. It is the photographer, not the camera, that is the instrument.”

— Eve Arnold


A Wedding should be experienced as a wedding and not turned into a commercial photoshoot. 

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Photos with real smiles and emotions are better than posed scenes.

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Photography should discover and communicate the real beauty of its subjects and not force them into a mold. 

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Since the photographer is by your side your entire wedding day and shapes so much of your experience their energy and attitude should make you feel beautiful, confident and free to be yourself.

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We Believe

A great photographer brings out the beauty and personality of every couple not just photogenic models.  

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The experience of your parents and family is a central part of your day to be documented.

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Weddings reveal the most important things in life: love, family, faith, community, culture—not to mention the sheer joy of a great party.

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Wedding photography should not be trendy or gimmicky. It should be timeless, true and beautiful. Then it will stand the test of time and be a family treasure.

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Since your photography is one of the only tangible keepsakes of your wedding, it’s worth investing in the highest quality possible.

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There are so many moments on the wedding day that are filled with meaning. A photographer must have a poetic and insightful vision to see this meaning and be able to encapsulate it in a photograph.

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Your wedding will be one of the best parties of your life. - yet most wedding photographers have a hard time capturing images in low light. Party Photography demands a rare skill set to capture what it feels like to be on your dancefloor with all your favorite people.

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Wedding photography is not a genre of photography. It requires a mastery of many different genres of photography to tell the whole story. 

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Miriam Pecas

Joakim Gleisner

Lina Shteyn

Ira Lippke

We are dedicated to creating exquisite photographs, prints, and albums in the highest quality possible, & providing delightful service in the process.

Meet the Team

Andrea Codrington Lippke

Ira, I do not have the words to express our awe and appreciation of you and the way you were part of our family on the day of our wedding. I'll never forget the day you taught my mom about a Bedeken and Tish, the way you brought so much needed joy and levity on our engagement shoot - and really, the entire wedding would not have been possible without you helping us all feel safe and okay being photographed. The Milsteins feel a certain level of assuredness, comfort, and ease with you at the helm.  

Ira, I know you have shot a loooooot of weddings in your day, but you found a way to make us feel like the most important, special couple to you. You were really part of our union that day and I can't thank you enough for going above and beyond. The photography here is nothing of a covid wedding. This event is anything but. You created art, brought out the love and energy and really underscore all the happy and powerful emotional currents that ran through the day.

These memories will be passed down to future generations and you are the people behind capturing that legacy and we'll never forget it. 



You created art, brought out the love and energy and really underscore all the happy and powerful emotional currents that ran through the day.

"

Toby & Judah Schulman

LOVE NOTES

Albums

Ira Lippke Studios specializes in producing exquisite wedding albums that are sure to become family heirlooms.

Every album is personally curated and designed by the event’s lead photographer

Each image has been perfected by a highly trained senior photo editor

All photographs are printed by a master printmaker in New York

Each album is handbound by a leading bookbinder in New York

All luxurious leather and materials have been selected by Ira and are available only to Ira Lippke Studios clients 

Frequently Asked Questions

We’ve learned over the years that every celebration is different and comes with its own set of unique needs. Because of this, we quote every wedding and event on an individual basis. That said, our full-service wedding collections begin at an investment of $12,000 for Lina Shteyn as Lead Photographer and $20,000 for Ira Lippke as lead photographer. Contact us for a more specific outline of your investment once we know more about your needs.  We are currently offering special pricing for Weddings in Europe so ask us about a custom quote!


Once you’ve selected your date and we’ve determined your package, we will prepare and send a photography proposal for your review. We ask that you return your signed contract within about a week to ensure your date remains available. Once we receive your contract and the 50 percent photography retainer, your wedding date is officially booked! The final balance is due four weeks prior to your wedding date. You can always expand your package if your plans develop but the most important thing is to have your date reserved on our calendar.


Travel IS included for all weddings in NYC and throughout Europe since these are our home locations and we want to make it as easy as possible for our clients. That said, we love to shoot all over the world and as each wedding is unique we would like to learn about your destination and celebration before we discuss travel plans. We then customize a quote based on the location, size of the team and number of shooting days. The travel quote is added to your selected collection and we handle all of our own travel arrangements unless otherwise specified.


We have a pool of talented photographers and assistants and can build the perfect team for your event. We’ve documented large events with five photographers and four assistants working overnight to have images ready for publication the next morning, yet an intimate elopement or family affair might only need one lead photographer. A second photographer is typically recommended for weddings with 100 guests or more and for certain venue layouts.



We always plan to arrive on location at least the morning prior to the first event we’re shooting. This allows for any travel delays and gives us time to get acclimated to the area, including scouting the wedding and shooting locations. During scouting, we often begin taking location and “scene” shots, which help narrate the complete story of your wedding.  



In 20-plus years of shooting weddings, I have yet to have an emergency that’s prevented me from shooting. That said, it is still something we plan for. Leading up to a wedding, we plan our lives carefully to ensure our health is in top form and that we have ample travel time. Should unforeseen circumstances prevent us from attending your wedding, we have a collective of talented photographers who cover for each other. We will do our best to arrange a replacement photographer of equivalent caliber and style and your pricing would be adjusted to their rate. Alternatively, we would return your full investment and allow you to make your own arrangements if you so choose. 



Typically, we curate 80 to 100 final images per hour of coverage, so 11 hours of coverage will usually have around 1,000 images. We shoot significantly more than that to make sure we get your best expressions and decisive moments. Part of our bespoke service is to spend significant time curating these into chapters, indicating our favorites and adjusting them to beautifully tell your story.


We present all of the curated images to you in three ways:

PROOFBOOK: This is rare these days, but I believe that there is a unique experience of viewing your images printed. It’s great to view them on your phone or computer, but there’s something substantive to having them all printed in chronological order and archived in an easily accessible and tangible way. So we create a custom large 11x14 hardbound proofbook of each event for your enjoyment and to physically archive the event for future generations.

ONLINE GALLERY: Divided into chapters, this gallery is connected to a professional lab that can quickly print and mail high-quality prints to you and your guests.

DIGITAL FILES: These are ready to be shared via email or social media. If you need high-res files just let us know. All the images that you choose for your album will get what we call the “royal treatment” from our Senior Photo Editor and then each album we make also comes with a harddrive with all of the high-res files from the event, including the recently retouched album choices.


Individual images that you order as prints from the online gallery or those you’ve selected to appear in an album layout will receive the “royal treatment,” which includes blemish removal, under-eye touch-up, distracting hair removal and/or slight cropping. Our preference is for all images to look natural and unretouched so any adjustments we make are minimal, leaving your photographs looking clean, beautiful and representative of your celebration.

We also offer cosmetic retouching for specific requests. These may include wardrobe, hair and makeup adjustments, head swapping, background alterations or any elements beyond basic retouching. 

Our work is focused on creating exquisite art using the finest methods and quality products. With a passion for the details, we carefully curate and present each and every project we photograph. Turnaround times for engagement and portrait sessions average 4 to 5 weeks. Turnaround times for wedding images is 8 weeks.

We also offer cosmetic retouching for specific requests. These may include wardrobe, hair and makeup adjustments, head swapping, background alterations or any elements beyond basic retouching. 

Staying on schedule is one of the most important factors of our work. We plan carefully with your wedding planner or coordinator to create a custom minute-by-minute photo timeline for each event. Adhering to our photo timeline ensures that we are able to capture every incredible moment and detail of your celebration in optimal lighting conditions.


We have a very hands-on approach to setting up a wedding day timeline—our goal is to ensure that you have the best natural light for every part of your celebration. We also prefer to help build the timeline together with your planner and designer to gives you plenty of time to capture all of your desired portraits and photographs throughout the day with buffers to ensure you have a smooth and enjoyable experience. We believe the backbone of the day should be the experience of the wedding covered with a photojournalistic approach. Then some elements are art directed and styled detail shots with a fun and romantic editorial fashion shoot. The end result yields a beautiful balance of people, details and emotion that tells the full story of the Day.


It doesn’t take much to understand why people choose to plan destination weddings. (Full disclosure: I myself got married on a beach in Brazil rather than in New York where my wife and I live.) Many couples choose a destination for a wedding because they find their personalities reflected in the geography of Provence or the architectural wonders of Portugal. They seek to break the barriers of traditional weddings by going to a new and exciting place or return to the place where their love first bloomed. Destination weddings are easier to customize and enable couples to create unique new traditions. Other couples find that overseas weddings provide the opportunity to have an intimate event in which they spend more time with their core guests and build bonds and memories. Finding a local photographer in a foreign country presents distinct challenges, including communication, work style and the like. There are many advantages to booking someone whose business is oriented to destination events—and who speaks your language and knows exactly what you want.


Even though most studios offer 8 hours of coverage, we believe this is not enough. To tell a wedding story well we start with 10 hours of coverage, and you can easily add more coverage if you'd like.

You deserve to enjoy every single moment, confident that your photographer will capture…

everyone says their wedding day went by in a blur.

How beautiful you feel. 

How much fun you had.

How loved you are.

Wedding planning can be an exciting journey but it's also a great opportunity to give back. Whether your wedding is large or small, there are many ways you can integrate charity-driven initiatives into the process in order to make your special day more meaningful and memorable.

From monetary donations to creative fundraisers benefiting local causes close to your heart, there are plenty of ways you and your guests can do good while celebrating this momentous occasion. If you want to set the tone from the moment you start planning the wedding, here are three ways to incorporate charitable contributions as part of your planning process.

Three ways you can support charities during the wedding planning process

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If you’re planning on keeping charity at the heart of proceedings on your wedding day, the invites are the best way to spread the word and make everyone aware of your intentions. As well as giving everyone a better insight into your plans for the day, you’ll also be helping to raise awareness for your chosen cause from the outset, rather than just making a point on
the day.

Wedding invitations are also commonly used to ask guests for gifts. A great way to incorporate charity at this stage of the planning process is to ask for donations instead of physical presents. There are lots of ways you can politely make this request – think carefully about the wording and your guests are sure to be receptive to the idea.

01. Ask for donations instead of gifts

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With the most in-demand venues sometimes being booked up years in advance, securing your first choice is something that should be high up on your priority list. However, when you’re looking to incorporate charity into this important aspect of the planning process, there are a few extra considerations you’ll have to make.

When viewing potential locations, be sure to ask about any recycling or food donation policies they have in place to support local organizations. Also, non-profit spaces like animal sanctuaries can make for incredible, unique venues that will also benefit from your donation, so think outside the box when picking the all-important venue.

The same goes for choosing your suppliers – the people and companies responsible for delivering some of the most important aspects of your day. When it comes to finding vendors that align with your ethical stance, a good place to start is looking for companies that have acquired B-Corp certification. This will ensure that they perform to the highest social and environmental standards, giving you peace of mind that they will provide a high quality service without compromising on ethics.

02. Carefully consider your venue and suppliers

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Building your own wedding website during the planning process is an excellent way to centralize any information your guests will need in advance of the big day. Having your own website is also a great opportunity to promote the charities you’re looking to support through the planning process.

On the page, you can include some background information about why you chose to support the charity/charities you picked, and how your guests can support them further. If you’ve set up a fundraising page for your chosen charity, make sure to link to this on your website so it’s easy for guests to make donations should they wish to do so.

03. Personalize your wedding website

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No matter which cause you choose to support, making charity a part of your wedding day is a wonderful way to make your celebrations even more special. By getting your guests involved during the planning process, you could inspire them to make similar fundraising efforts, helping to benefit charities long after you’ve tied the knot.

Charitable Celebrations

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