I'm Lucie Fink and this week is
Hello everyone, welcome back to New York City, and welcome back to Refinery29's YouTube channel.
If you're new here and you haven't yet, subscribe.
Be sure to click on the little subscribe button down here.
Be sure you're subscribed to my personal YouTube channel @luciebfink, and give this video a
thumbs up if you're excited for a new Try Living With Lucie episode.
This is sadly going to be one of the last episodes ever that I shoot in this bedroom
because Michael and I are moving soon.
So look around and say goodbye.
Take it all in.
Now I know why you're all
here, and that's because you want all of the details and all of the behind the scenes info
about wedding planning.
So let's just get into the video.
Honestly there is so much that goes into the entire wedding planning process.
Just way more than can fit into one YouTube video.
If I actually made this video accurate and I tracked the video through the entire process,
this video would be a year long video.
So for this video I'm going to pick five major aspects of wedding planning to explore but
just know, we're scratching the surface here.
One disclaimer that I want to make upfront is that this video is probably going to be
most interesting and
also most helpful to people out there that want to have a traditional wedding.
A big party with your family and friends, a caterer, a band or a DJ.
A blowup.
However every wedding is different and every bride and groom want something different from
their wedding day.
Many people don't even want a wedding at all.
So if you're interested in a very small personal wedding, a lot of the details that I'm about
to throw at you will probably not be applicable to your situation.
Michael and I both wanted to have a big wedding celebration and we also both have very big
families.
So that's why this video
is going to be pretty traditional.
Now that the disclaimer is out of the way, let's go.
The first thing that you'll likely need to consider, and probably the least fun aspect
of all of this, is your budget.
Your budget is going to dictate everything you do moving forward.
There are a ton of online tools that can help you when it comes to planning your wedding
budget, but because that is so not fun, that's what I'm going to skip over right now to get
to the fun stuff.
Things I will cover in this video: selecting your venue, your color scheme and flowers,
wedding invitations, and all the Day Of stationery, picking your dress, and of course
catering and the cake.
As I mentioned in a couple of previous videos, Michael and I are using wedding planners.
So before we go any further, let me introduce you to them.
I'm Sarah Duke.
And I'm Taylor Van Deusen.
And we are Lucie and Michael's wedding planners.
We've been working together since 2013 but we've been friends since birth.
Pretty much.
Lucie really did come in with a really strong idea of where she wanted to take the wedding
and those different details but did really leave it open.
She really has had so much fun with this process.
She knew what she was looking for in terms of design and aesthetic but she's been so
open minded and really creative throughout the process.
And now let's dive in to Step one: Finding Your Venue.
First step in looking for a location for our bride would be to determine their budget,
as well as how many guests they will be having.
The process can begin a full year for some clients and these places book up fast.
Some brides and grooms start the wedding planning process by actually diving into the nitty
gritty details.
Napkin rings, bouquets, what color dancefloor they want to have.
But I think the small details are best kept for later.
And I would say that immediately after you set your budget, the next big thing you should
do is find your venue.
You might be surprised how far in advance you need to book some of these venues.
Of course, it depends on the time of year, the location, and also how many other couples
are vying for that same space.
But just to give you an idea, Michael and I signed the contract for our wedding venue
in May 2018,
which is one year and four months before our actual wedding date.
And to be totally honest a lot of other weekend dates around our date were already booked
at our venue at that time.
You really do have to pick that venue first because if you think about it, the venue is
going to be the place that dictates what day you can get married and you can't start booking
things like florists and bands and caterers until you can tell them exactly when and where
you're getting married.
And when it comes time to look at venues, there are a ton of factors to consider.
Of course, there's the visual appeal.
You want to make sure that both the outside and the
inside of the venue fit with the vibe you're trying to create.
You kind of need to know a rough number of how many people you plan on inviting, because
a lot of these venues do have a cap on the amount of people they can hold.
And this is the moment when you're really going to start making some major decisions
about your event.
Is it a beach wedding?
Is it on a lake?
Is it in a forest?
Is it in a hotel?
Are you having the ceremony inside or outside?
At a church or any other religious space?
At first, Michael and I thought that we wanted to get married in New York City, potentially
on a rooftop with city views.
So we did start out by looking at a few venues locally.
So despite this footage that you're seeing right now, which shows me walking through
a venue totally by myself, I did in fact do this process with Michael.
I just had to go back to film it during the work week when he wasn't available, because
we didn't actually want to film the real experience when we were trying to pick a venue.
Tribeca Rooftop is a gorgeous venue in New York City that has stunning views of the Hudson
River and of the Freedom Tower, and the indoor section has a glass ceiling and a giant open
space that you can do so many things with.
The Glass House is another
beautiful venue with huge windows and amazing city views.
Typically, when you visit these places as a potential wedding venue, someone is giving
you a tour and showing you the whole space.
And I found that one of the most helpful parts of this is when you sit down with that person
and they show you photos of the space from previous events that have been there.
Michael and I ultimately settled on a venue outside of the city because we wanted our
wedding to feel like more of a full weekend getaway.
But the venue we chose is an art museum which makes things a little bit trickier.
It's not a standard event space that has tables and chairs or even a kitchen.
So we have to bring in everything, from every fork and knife to the dance floor itself,
to even assembling a cook tent with backup generators for the caterers.
So there is a lot to think about here when it comes to venues.
Typically 15% of your overall budget goes to the venue.
After securing your venue and your wedding date, I'd say the next big thing to focus
on is to start building a mood board.
Look at colors you love, floral arrangements and overall design inspiration.
Our venue is a very raw space, so if we didn't have any design elements in the room, it would
pretty much just be black walls with a solid slate floor.
So this was the moment in the wedding journey when I went crazy with Pinterest, magazines,
design books and so much more.
Typically one of the most prominent elements of planning a wedding is selecting your floral
arrangements.
One of the things to be considering when looking at flowers for your wedding is the time of
year you're deciding to get married, because a lot of the flowers that you're looking at
might be only available in the spring, or some that are only available in the fall.
Certain types of flowers actually signify different moods or hold deeper meanings.
For instance, as you might already know, a red rose symbolizes deep love, passion and
unwavering affection, but a yellow rose much of the time is saying 'get well soon'.
Now listen, a lot of people choose their wedding color scheme purely based on aesthetics,
as I did.
I did not do too much floral research here.
But this can be a moment where you can get a little bit poetic or deep if you're into
that.
The various aspects that are going to ultimately play into how your overall wedding looks include
the furniture that you're going to rent, like the tables and chairs, every plate, dish,
napkin and fork.
Centerpieces, candles, bread baskets, and then of course lighting.
Is it a daytime wedding?
Is it dimly lit at night?
The way things worked with our florist was that we had a couple of meetings early on
where we showed design inspiration and talked through things we liked and didn't like.
Their team has been taking everything we've said and sent them into account, and they've
been sending us emails back where they're actually sending through pictures of what
our space is going to look like.
And then one day, about one month before the wedding, we're gonna do one more in-person
meeting where we'll have a final mockup.
So we'll actually go there in person and see a table set up exactly the way it's going
to look at our wedding.
And that's when we can get really hands on and start moving things around a little, and
just making final tweaks to the look.
One thing that was really stressful to me when discussing the flowers was realizing
how wasteful the floral process is.
You pay for so many flowers, it's such a big expense, they're so beautiful, but they're
used for five hours and then they're thrown away.
So on our wedding day we'll be partnering with a company called Repeat Roses, and they
basically come to your venue, they collect all of your flowers, and then they take them
to cancer treatment centers and hospitals nearby.
They leave them there for about another week or so, and then when they're really at the
end of their lifecycle, they pick the flowers back up and they compost them.
I think it's an amazing way to add a charitable element to your wedding while also reducing
your environmental impact.
Typically 25 to 30% of your overall budget will go towards floral and decor, rentals
and lighting.
As a calligraphy and stationery junkie, I have to say that planning out the invitations,
and also the entire suite of Day Of paper products, was one of the most fun parts of
the entire process for me.
This is the one area in the budget where people always say they don't want to spend a lot
and then always end up overspending once they see all these options.
I did for a brief second consider hand lettering all of our invitations, but I quickly realized
how much work that was going to be.
So thankfully I came across a custom letter press and wedding invitation boutique in Manhattan
called Ipanema Press.
Hi I'm Adrienne, I'm the owner of Ipanema Press.
There are so many options that we talk about with clients when they come in to look at
stationery.
The paper, the print method, the ink colors, the envelope liners, the type of envelopes
you use.
So from the first stages of Save the Dates, all the way through to the Day Of stationery,
place cards and menus, we take it step by step so it's not so overwhelming.
We're working with Ipanema for all of our wedding
paper products.
So the invitations, RSVP cards, menus, place cards, even thank you notes, and a lot more.
Traditionally someone would probably use that same company that's doing all of that to make
their save the dates.
But if you've watched any of my previous wedding videos, you might know that Michael and I
chose to send out a Save the Date video instead of Save the Date cards.
If you want to watch that it's on my Instagram TV @luciebfink.
When Lucie came in she wasn't quite sure what direction she wanted to go in, but she did
have a venue that was modern.
So, from there we decided let's go with something that is super simple, and really clean and
really unusual.
So we walked through the whole process.
We looked at papers.
Lucy really loved this beautiful textured cotton paper.
She liked touches of modern calligraphy but also a really clean streamlined block line.
One thing I realized after we sent out our invitations was just how important they are
as a physical reminder to really get your guests excited for your big day.
I can't even tell you how many of our guests called me or e-mailed me or called my parents
to let everyone know how excited they were once they actually got the invitation.
And the process of actually packing up the invitations to send them off was so much fun.
My family got together and we basically just made a huge assembly line and had an envelope
stuffing party.
We all put on surgical gloves to protect the invitations from the oils on our hands, and
we went through our guest list person by person and packed up each person's invite individually,
adding all of the necessary elements.
And then we mailed them all out in bulk.
And don't even get me started about all of the
excitement of starting to see people's RSVP cards rolling in.
I would say about 5% of your overall budget goes towards the Save the Date invitations
and also the Day Of stationery.
If you haven't watched any of my previous videos on this topic, here's a quick recap.
When it came time to pick my dress there was pretty much only one bridal boutique that
came to mind and that is Kleinfeld Bridal, home of Say Yes To The Dress.
And it only took me two appointments to find my dream dress.
In my first session at Kleinfeld I genuinely liked almost every dress I tried on.
They were all gorgeous and I could have seen myself picking pretty much any of those.
So I left kind of confused.
At my second appointment, I was in the process of trying on some of the same
dresses from my first appointment, when my Kleinfeld stylist Debbie said, "hang on, give
me one second, I'm going to go grab one new dress that just came in from Milan."
She came back with this gorgeous dress in this clear packaging.
I knew it was the one the moment she unzipped it and I saw it.
And it was nothing short of a magical moment.
I screamed and then I looked myself in the mirror and I had this sort of out of body
experience where I was making eye contact with myself while I was thinking,
Some brides like to change outfits between the ceremony and the reception so they might
have two, maybe even three dresses.
Once they found this dress, I just knew that I loved it so much and I had to spend the
entire night in it.
So I only have one dress and I won't be taking it off.
Seriously, I might even sleep in it.
And about three minutes after I first stepped into this gown, I officially said yes to the
dress.
So you're currently seeing footage of me trying on dresses at Kleinfeld, and I have a whole
video on this but I'm not showing you the dress that I ended up selecting.
Stay tuned on my Instagram account and my YouTube channel after September 21st for the
final reveal.
We don't usually include the wedding dress in our budget at all because our clients are
looking for such different things when it comes to their dress.
When choosing a caterer, we like to think about again what location we've chosen and
what time of year that is, because we want to keep it seasonal.
Let's be honest.
Being a professional food taster seems like it would be one of the best jobs in the entire
world.
And as the bride and groom to be
You basically get to do this.
The food served at your event can be a big part of your wedding day if you choose for
it to be.
And every catering company specializes in something different.
Some are amazing at using locally sourced ingredients.
Others have a stunning presentation that looks like something right out of Chef's Table.
But I have to say, one of the most fun parts about being a bride to be is getting to do
the food tastings.
Some catering companies do tastings entirely for free.
Others only charge you if you choose not to go with them for your event.
So definitely do some research before you start filling up your calendar with tastings.
But this is really where you can start to put yourself in the shoes of your guests and
develop a delicious menu.
The footage that you're seeing right now was recreated footage with the catering company
that we chose for our wedding: Events by Peter Ambrose.
And here you're seeing me tasting the food all by myself, because once again this is
recreated footage.
But in reality, this was a whole family affair.
Chef Pete came into our family home and essentially did one giant dinner for nine of us.
It was basically a big meal of many tastings of different hors d'oeuvres,
appetizers, main courses, and of course a ton of dessert options.
Everyone gets a menu card in front of them, and then as you're eating you take notes right
on the menu card.
Then at the end we talk about what people liked or what they want to swap out, until
ultimately we can develop a menu that everyone loves.
And you can’t forget about the cake.
So we did our cake tasting on the same day as this catering tasting.
Even though the cake is a different company.
The cake is another opportunity where we really styled it to fit with the overall look of
the wedding.
So we really think about
what we're plating this cake on.
Having a floral team come in and add flowers to style it.
It's another moment.
I actually did an entire episode of Lucie for Hire as a wedding cake maker and that
was years before we got engaged.
But I really do know how intense and how intricate the cake process can be.
I think the best way to go about choosing what your wedding cake is going to look like
is just to look through the Internet and find photos that you love.
And that's what we did and it was very easy.
But there's also the option of looking through your cake maker's repertoire and seeing what
they specialize in or other cakes they've
already made.
Or if you're really crafty you can draw a cake design on your own and build it from
scratch.
Generally about 20% of your budget will go towards catering.
30% of your budget goes to everything else that we haven't covered.
We're not even at marriage yet.
And wedding planning has been a journey in and of itself.
I'm not going to lie.
It has been a little bit stressful at times, but overall it's incredibly fun.
And truthfully I wouldn't have even known where to begin without our planners.
So if you can find planners that you like I would highly recommend
passing off most of the heavy lifting to them, especially if you already have a full time
job.
Some planners charge by the hour.
Others tack on a fee to the total cost to your wedding.
So just do some research and figure out what works best for you.
Just to be sure I mention it, here are some other major aspects of wedding planning that
I didn't even cover in this video that are still very important to consider.
Choosing your wedding band or DJ, choosing your wedding bands, the rings, having hair
and makeup trials, hiring a photographer and or a videographer, building your wedding registry,
assembling all of your accessories for the day of including shoes, any jewelry you're
going to wear,
And of course, planning your honeymoon.
Be sure that you're subscribed to my YouTube channel and following my Instagram account.
Both are @luciebfink, because I'll likely be sharing a little bit more wedding prep
content before September 21st.
Give this video a thumbs up if you liked learning more about my wedding planning process.
And if you've already had a wedding, or if you just have tips to share, please comment
them below.
Thank you so much for coming back as always and we'll see you next time on Try Living
with Lucie.
Hey YouTube!
Thanks for watching.
Click here for another video on this channel, right here to subscribe to R29 on YouTube,
and right here for my personal YouTube channel.
Don't forget to find me on Instagram @luciebfink and comment below with your next Try Living
with Lucie suggestion.
See ya!