Wedding DJ at The Lucy in Philadelphia, PA

The Space

The Lucy opened in December 2018 on Philadelphia’s Avenue of the Arts, built out on the site of the former Perch Pub and Upstairs at Varalli restaurants. Cescaphe founders Joe and Andrea Volpe developed the space and named it after Joe’s mother, Lucille. The building carries a modern take on nineteenth century detailing throughout, with brass chandeliers, marble accents, and chevron wood floors running across its multiple levels.

The layout spreads a wedding over three floors instead of one open room. Guests move from a draped ceremony room on the third floor, down to a second floor mezzanine for cocktails, and finally into the grand ballroom on the main floor for dinner and dancing, so each phase of the evening gets its own distinct space rather than one room reset twice.

Capacity & Layout

The ballroom seats 325 with a dance floor in place or 350 without one, and the full 17,000 square foot building can hold 800 for a cocktail style event, numbers that give a couple real room to decide between an intimate seated dinner and a larger standing reception. The dance floor itself measures 20 by 24 feet and adjusts in size, paired with a 12 by 20 foot stage for a band or a DJ setup.

Because the ceremony, cocktail hour, and reception each get a separate floor, the room count matters as much as the seat count when planning the timeline. The Cescaphe signature format runs a full hour and a half of cocktails on the second floor mezzanine, which gives the ballroom time to be reset and gives guests a proper stretch of time to mingle before dinner is called.

Amenities

A modern bridal suite sits on the second floor for the wedding party to get ready and regroup between the ceremony and cocktail hour. Multiple bars are set up on both the main floor and the second floor, so service does not bottleneck at a single station, and Cescaphe’s in-house catering handles the kitchen end of the event without an outside vendor to coordinate.

An elevator connects all three floors for guests with mobility concerns, in addition to the stairs, and a balcony off the building offers views of the Philadelphia skyline for photos or a quiet moment during the reception. Parking is available in a lot behind the venue, with valet service offered as well for guests who would rather not deal with a downtown lot themselves.

Location & Getting There

The Lucy sits half a mile from the Pennsylvania Convention Center and next to Philadelphia City Hall, in the middle of Broad Street’s theater district. Philadelphia International Airport is about 8.5 miles away, a manageable drive for guests flying in, and the downtown setting means most hotels, restaurants, and attractions for an out of town wedding party are within easy walking distance. We have worked a wedding at The Lucy and know the load-in from the street level.

Sound behaves differently on each floor here. The draped third floor ceremony room and the marble and wood surfaces of the main ballroom carry differently, so a DJ setting up for both the ceremony and the reception has to treat them as two separate rooms, adjusting levels for the smaller draped space before resetting for the open ballroom downstairs.