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A bride and groom kiss in the middle of Vanderbilt Avenue, Grand Central Terminal behind them and a yellow cab waiting at the light.

Sense of Moment Wedding planning and event design in New York

The couple face each other on a rooftop terrace above Midtown, a black railing and glass towers behind them.
A flat lay on cream linen: a bouquet of white calla lilies, ivory slingback heels, a ring box with two rings, diamond earrings and a bracelet, lilac silk ribbon, a bottle of perfume and the printed invitation suite.

Sense of Moment

A New York wedding, built around your story.

Sense of Moment is a wedding planning and design studio in New York City, led by Olha Barabash. We take on full planning and design, from the first venue visit to the last dance.

We start with your story, not a mood board. The concept comes out of that, and every choice after it follows. We plan weddings in Manhattan, Brooklyn, New Jersey and Upstate New York, and anywhere else your story belongs.

Start your inquiryHow we plan

The Yale Club, and the details for The River Café.

Vision

Every wedding, a story of its own.

The morning of a wedding: the back of a lace gown, buttoned from the waist to the shoulders.

It starts with the people, not the palette: who’s coming, from how far, and what you’ll want to remember. Everything else follows from there. No two weddings in this film look the same.

Eighteen seconds from weddings we have planned.

How we work

Three things you can count on.

  1. The New York Public Library on Fifth Avenue seen from above, its marble steps and columns.

    Built around your story

    Your wedding starts with your story, never a trend. How you met, how your family celebrates, the traditions that matter to you. Every detail comes from there, which is why it could only ever be yours.

  2. A bridesmaid in an emerald dress laces the bride's corset while another lifts the layered skirt, beside a leaded window.

    Hosted, not just held

    Your guests are looked after from the moment they arrive. Every detail is anticipated, and the evening moves the way a great dinner party does. It’s a guest experience your family and friends will talk about for years.

  3. The couple kiss in the middle of Vanderbilt Avenue, their wedding party lined up beside them in black suits and green dresses, the tall arched windows of Grand Central behind.

    You’ll be there for all of it

    Full-service planning means the work you never see is done quietly, well before you arrive. You won’t spend your wedding checking the time. What you’ll remember is the people around you and how it felt to be in that room.

A reception room beneath hanging white flowers, long tables of white and blue arrangements under crystal chandeliers.
A woman in a pink dress helps the bride with her gown, both of them smiling, the bride’s dark hair over one shoulder.
The bride is lifted high on a chair above the dance floor, guests crowding around her beneath the chandeliers.

Why Sense of Moment

Remembered for how it felt, not just how it looked.

“My wedding was an absolute dream. Not a single thing went wrong the entire day and every detail surpassed my expectations!”

Nicole DeRienzo

Beautiful is expected. What stays with you is something else: the song your parents recognized from their own wedding, the dance floor still full at midnight. Whether it’s an intimate ceremony or three hundred guests in Manhattan, your wedding is designed around those moments.

As seen in

  • Martha Stewart
  • Los Angeles Times
  • Bridal Guide
  • Brides
  • Wedding Chicks
  • Destination I Do
  • Bespoke Bride
  • Love Inc.
  • Magnolia Rouge
  • Boho Weddings

Press

Signature work

Weddings we have planned

See more weddings

What we do

Every occasion, beautifully planned

  • Full planning and design

    Every detail of your wedding taken care of, from the first venue visit until your last guest leaves.

  • Partial planning

    Your venue is booked. Everything that comes next is handled.

  • Wedding design and creative direction

    Concepts built from your story, carried through every room and every hour of your day.

  • Destination weddings

    Your wedding, wherever it takes place, with the same design and care as at home.

  • Wedding weekends

    From the welcome dinner to the farewell brunch, every event belongs to the same story. Your guests come for a wedding and stay for the whole weekend.

  • Private celebrations

    Milestones, anniversaries, proposals and dinners, planned with the same care as a wedding.

Venues

New York venues, and the estates beyond

City venues

Private clubs, hotel ballrooms and rooftop gardens across Manhattan and Brooklyn, from 620 Loft & Garden to Cipriani and the Yale Club. Every room has its own rules and rhythm. Knowing them before you book means no surprises later.

Estates and beyond

Historic estates and gardens in Westchester, Upstate New York and New Jersey, from Lyndhurst Mansion to Blue Hill at Stone Barns. Or somewhere farther, if that’s where your story belongs.

All venues, with our notes

City venues

Private clubs, hotel ballrooms and rooftop gardens across Manhattan and Brooklyn, from 620 Loft & Garden to Cipriani and the Yale Club. Every room has its own rules and rhythm. Knowing them before you book means no surprises later.

  1. A pale ballroom at The Yale Club with a crystal chandelier, rows of gold chairs facing a chuppah of white and green flowers hung with white drapes.
    The Yale Club of New York CityVanderbilt Avenue, Midtown Manhattan
  2. Rows of black chairs on the roof at Tribeca Rooftop face two arches of roses, the towers of Lower Manhattan beyond them under a blue sky.
    Tribeca RooftopTribeca, Manhattan
  3. The spires of St. Patrick's Cathedral and the towers of Fifth Avenue glow at sunset, seen over the clipped hedges of the rooftop garden at 620 Loft & Garden.
    620 Loft & GardenRockefeller Center, Fifth Avenue
  4. A round sweetheart table dressed in white linen and candles, set in a window overlooking the East River at The River Café.
    The River CaféBrooklyn, beneath the Brooklyn Bridge
  5. At 74 Wythe, long tables set with candles and greenery, the Midtown skyline beyond the windows at dusk.
    74 WytheWilliamsburg, Brooklyn
  6. Guests gather beneath a white canopy on the Long Island City waterfront, facing the Manhattan skyline across the East River.
    Long Island CityQueens, on the East River
  7. 28 Liberty Street, the glass and steel tower in Lower Manhattan whose sixtieth floor holds Manhatta, seen from the plaza below.
    ManhattaLower Manhattan, 60th floor of 28 Liberty Street
  8. The painted and gilded dome of the Great Hall of the Cunard Building at 25 Broadway, lit in violet and gold for an evening event.
    CiprianiManhattan, from 42nd Street to the Financial District
  9. The limestone and brick façade of the Harmonie Club at 4 East 60th Street, its tall arched windows and balconies rising above the street.
    The Harmonie ClubUpper East Side, off Fifth Avenue
  10. The William Vale in Williamsburg, a white tower raised on angled concrete legs above a public park, against a bright sky.
    The William ValeWilliamsburg, Brooklyn
  11. The glass Palm House at Brooklyn Botanic Garden in summer, framed by trees and lawn under a clear blue sky.
    Brooklyn Botanic GardenBrooklyn, beside Prospect Park

Estates and beyond

Historic estates and gardens in Westchester, Upstate New York and New Jersey, from Lyndhurst Mansion to Blue Hill at Stone Barns. Or somewhere farther, if that’s where your story belongs.

  1. Lyndhurst Mansion's grey stone towers and turrets above the lawn.
    Lyndhurst MansionTarrytown, the Hudson Valley
  2. A circular arch of blue and white flowers on the lawn at Whitby Castle, the castle behind under a clear blue sky.
    Whitby CastleRye, Westchester
  3. The dining room at Blue Hill at Stone Barns, with stone walls, tall windows and iron chandeliers, long tables lit by candles and flowers.
    Blue Hill at Stone BarnsPocantico Hills, Westchester
  4. A room at The New York Botanical Garden with arched windows, rows of wooden chairs facing an arch of white and blush flowers and greenery.
    The New York Botanical GardenThe Bronx
  5. The ballroom at The Rockleigh seen from the dance floor, a ceiling of hanging flowers and crystal above every table.
    The RockleighRockleigh, New Jersey
  6. On the lawn at Liberty House, rows of white chairs face a wooden arch draped with white fabric and flowers, the Manhattan skyline across the river.
    Liberty HouseLiberty State Park, Jersey City

All venues, with our notes

Photographs of Manhatta by Kidfly182 (CC BY 4.0), Cipriani by Red de Leon (CC BY-SA 4.0), The Harmonie Club by ajay_suresh (CC BY 4.0), The William Vale by Mikeyfrecks (CC BY-SA 3.0) and Brooklyn Botanic Garden by jimbay (CC BY-SA 3.0), via Wikimedia Commons.

Families from everywhere, and every tradition

Two lion dancers in red, gold and cream rear up on either side of the couple beneath stage lights at Blue Hill at Stone Barns, guests gathered behind them.
Blue Hill at Stone Barns. The lion dance.

Two traditions, one celebration

Some weddings open with a tea ceremony. Others bring a lion dance into the reception, or a change into hanbok before dinner. From the very first meeting, your traditions are part of the design, never an afterthought.

Multicultural weddings

Two cultures, one wedding

When families come from different cultures, each has its own idea of what a wedding should be. Both are heard, and the day is designed so everyone sees themselves in it.

See real weddings

The couple kneel on orange cushions before an elder, a tray of tea cups between them.
The William Vale, Brooklyn. The tea ceremony.
A mother in a white and pale blue hanbok laughs as she dances with the groom beneath a striped canopy, the bride and a guest smiling behind them.
The River Café, Brooklyn. A dance in hanbok.
The bride, in a red qipao embroidered in gold, offers a cup of tea to a seated elder, the groom in black tie beside her.
Blue Hill at Stone Barns. The tea ceremony.
Olha Barabash smiles, leaning against a carved stone gatepost in a white blazer and plum trousers, a wrought iron fence and townhouse lanterns behind her.

The planner

No small request goes unnoticed.

Olha Barabash, New York wedding planner and creative director

Olha Barabash has planned weddings in New York for over fourteen years, and she still treats every couple’s story as the most important thing in the room. She’s meticulous in a way couples feel more than see. You keep the joyful decisions. She takes care of everything else.

Meet Olha

Sense of Moment in numbers

Complex celebrations, many times over

Years in events
14
Guests at an average wedding
200+

Behind the scenes

An estate wedding, from an empty lawn to evening

The forecast at Lyndhurst Mansion called for rain, so the rain plan went up: a white tent, empty on the lawn. By evening, guests were dancing beneath chandeliers and a ceiling lit like a night sky, as if the tent had been the plan all along. Guests never knew there was a plan B. That’s the point.

Estate and tented weddings

Inside a white tent at Lyndhurst, a member of the team lays a long table set with white chairs and greenery, chandeliers hanging from the draped ceiling.
Lyndhurst Mansion. The tent, from an empty lawn to evening, in thirty seconds.

In their words

What families tell us afterwards

  • “Both of us felt totally relaxed; we knew Olha had every detail under control. It allowed us to just enjoy the evening and the company of our family and friends.”

    Meredith Clark

  • “From start to finish, she made our special day more than we could’ve ever imagined. She works so diligently to make sure that everything is perfect for the day of and the weeks leading up to it.”

    Erica S.

  • “Our wedding was better than anything that we could have ever imagined. The amount of detail and thought that Olha put into it was just mind-blowing.”

    Sally Song

More kind words

Begin with a conversation.

Tell us about your wedding, and we will take it from there.

Begin an inquiry