Jason - the groom, has a PHD degree in engineering. He likes simple, elegant, looks for his wedding. Aside from these elements on his wedding, what he also looks for in his wedding is life partner as well. Then Vivi steps in fulfill all these elements and became his dream wife.
Vivi - the bride, is a very straightforward person and very productive. We met a year before I officially became a planner. I was her makeup artist for her shooting day at city hall. During the makeup time, I got familiar with her as she is a very cheerful person, elegant, and lovely girl. She loves natural makeup, simple and clean wedding theme like vintage chic. She’s the type of person who will take others opinion and professional advise to heart.
Because of this, we clicked immediately and the wedding planning was on its way. She feels that I know what she wants without having to say anything.
Now lets all recap to the start of this wedding……
(same day video edited )
Jason and Vivi requested the wedding to be outdoor in the mid summer. They envision their wedding to be at a clear tent in greenery background while having a warm dinner with their family and close friends.
According to her need, we have locked down 3 venues.
( Photo source by Google )
First- Long Island vineyard wedding (Vineyard Wedding). The ceremony and reception can have the vineyard as background.
( Photo source by Google )
Second- Lessing’s ( The Mansion Oyster Bay) This also has a big lawn which can be used for outdoor wedding. This venue covers all the catering and rentals that you need. So it will save us time to search for outside vendors.
( Photo source by Google )
Third- The William Vale Hotel, it’s a rooftop venue with a city skyline as backdrop. You can have green floral decoration to create a garden like.
We were turn down by all these 3 venues due to our party size of 30 guests.
All venues have their minimum guest requirement for booking their space and the price varies by its date.
With this challenge, we have arrived to our fourth venue, Old Westbury Garden.
Jason and Vivi immediately loved the place when they saw the reception area called Orchard Hill. The Orchard Hill House is available for weddings and private events. Both can be indoor and outdoor. They also allow outdoor reception with installation of tent. But the venue requires a minimum of 70 guests for the booking. Since Jason and Vivi loves the venue so much, I decided to ask the manager with a slight hope of letting us book the venue.
The house is pretty small and very vintage
( Photo source by Google )The eye catching part of this house is the master room
I personally like the wallpaper, is not glamorous but elegant and simple. Which fits our theme very well.
( Photo source by Google )
Orchard Hill house has their our exclusive in house catering vendor, Thyme Restaurant.
Thyme Restaurant allows us to customize our food menu instead of choosing their fix menu with an additional cost.
The manager of Thyme is Nancy, who was very nice and easy to work with. She knows we have 30 guests and 90% of the guests are from out of the country whom flew in just for the newlywed. So she broke the rule and let us have the wedding at Orchard Hill on a busy season in June.
Since it’s a small wedding, the newlywed plan to spend $30,000 on their wedding. According to The Knot in 2018, the average American spent $78000 on their wedding. With the small amount of budget, I told Nancy straight up about our budget because I don’t want to waste time on a venue they later told us it would be over our budget. Normally, I will need to control the budget for the venue to be 35% to 45% of the entire budget. After negotiating with Nancy, we have finalized the price to be under 35% of the entire budget including the meal for 30 guest, rental for the tent, and other expense.
Since the newlywed live out of state, it would be hard for us to meet face to face. We mostly communicate via email and phone call. We only met 3 times in person so each of the meeting needs to be very efficient. After finalizing the venue, we narrow down the color palette for the wedding to be white, gray, green, and a kiss of blush.
Proposed Theme : Greenery / Rustic Chic
This theme fit our venue very well. It is exactly what the newlywed had envisioned, greenery field, tent, and green as the main color.
After setting the theme, we went searching for designer for wedding logo, RSVP, Thank You card, Welcome Board, and Dinner Menu.
The newlywed was very pleased with the initial design. They loved all 3 including the color variation, but I see them drifting away from their initial thought of simple and elegant. So after a few meeting with the designer, we came up with this final design.
Logo
（from left to the right : Invitation card/menu/save the date/timeline/thank you care and RSVP)
The bride didn't use a traditional diamond ring. She used a gold jade ring which was pass down from her mother side. The gold and the main color theme, green, matches every little detail very well.
It took only 3 edits, and the newlywed was very happy with the result. It reflects 100% of their wedding theme. The designer and I were very pleased.
Due to their long distance, I went to food tasting and visit the florist for the bouquet design. Instead of a traditional bouquet, I designed an unique bouquet to match her dress.
At first, I plan to use fresh flowers that consist of green leaves to be the table runner. We have a very limited budget for flowers. So I used the gray table runner with mid size floral centerpieces and the result came out great.
We did a powerpoint for the day of the wedding with design for the tent, dessert bar, sign in table, and ceremony.
We have a welcome board to greet the guest.
The wedding ceremony is located in the backyard.
Since the grass is uneven, I was worried that the bride might have a difficult time walking down the aisle, so I used white petals to be a makeshift runner.
For the aisle decoration, we tie gypsophila on the chair for a simple design.
We design a metal ring box with flowers and tree branch.
I used mint chocolate for the cake pop. The mint green on the outside and the touch of gold sparkle matches our theme. For the cupcake, we did a small flower design with little pearl balls on top. As for the cake, we kept it as simple as possible. The only decoration we put on is fresh flowers.
This is a very intimate wedding and at the same time its very casual as well. The goal of this wedding its for the newlywed to be able to enjoy their celebration with their family and friends.
Unlike other fancy weddings where everyone had to dress up and places had to be upscale, It is very likely that the guests cant relax themselves. I would like to thank my bride for entrusting my team to create this wonderful wedding.
Credit:
Wedding Planner : kris Lau Coordinator : Angel su
Photographer: Kevin Koo cinematographers : Alice & Guo
Makeup Artist : kris & vicki
Florist : Flower by Brain DJ Entertainment : SHINE entertainment
Venue: Orchard Hill House
Instragram- @vb_production
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