Megan & Dave’s Professional Photos

A few weeks back, I posted about Megan and Dave’s wedding. Click here for Three Lights Photography’s beautiful photos of the day.

Professional pictures by Three Lights Photography

August 2009 Fully booked

In order to maintain a quality level of service, we are no longer accepting bookings for August 2009. At least this year, I won’t have to work on my birthday (because it’s on a week day). Woo hoo! Thank you to all our clients for keeping us busy!

Wedding Planners Get-Together

It’s like with everything else in life, you don’t get together with the people you should often enough until something prompts you to do it. Liene Stevens from Blue Orchid Designs of Scottsdale/Phoenix, AZ was in town and invited several of the DC area planners from the i-Wed forum for a get-together. i-Wed is an international network of wedding and event designers and has a great forum where we can discuss how to manage our businesses, share ideas, and vent after a bad day. It’s a great sounding board.

It was fun to finally meet all the ladies in real life at America in Union Station over a delicious brunch. Although we had already spent 3 hours there and the staff was ready to kick us out, I think we could have done it for a few more hours. Thanks to Stephanie Aspinwall from Ayr Hill Events for organizing this!

Front Row: Sara Bauleke (Bella Notte), Liene Stevens (Blue Orchid Designs), Andrea Hansborough (A&H Events), Isis Petrie (Posh Events). 2nd Row: me, Kawania Wooten (Howerton+Wooten Events), Maria Cooke (Ritzy Bee), Lakendra Kennedy (Affairs with Elegance) Back Row: Letetia Nicole (Simply Beautiful Concepts), Laura Auer (Wish Special Events), Stephanie Aspinwall (Ayr Hill Events)

Real Wedding: LaShawn & Harold (Part 2)

Here are some of the photos I managed to take at LaShawn & Harold’s wedding! If you missed my vendor roundup, go back to Part 1. I loved the chocolate brown, red and champagne colors. We worked hard to make the room and mood feel romantic.

Da Vincis Altar Arrangement

Escort Cards by Haute Papier

Castle Room at Ft. Belvoir Officers Club

Centerpiece #1 Da Vincis Florist

Centerpiece #2 Da Vincis Florist

Centerpiece #3 Da Vincis Florist

Favors: notice in the picture above the small square box of truffles. Combined with the small bottles of Prosecco below, what’s more romantic than chocolates and champagne?

Prosecco Favors

Cake table at Ft. Belvoir Officers Club. Cool, huh? A square table with a piece of glass lifted off and the spacing between the two is filled with petals and red beads. You can see the Potomac River in the back. Photo courtesy of my assistant, Juanice Jenkins.

Check out the sweetheart table! I just love the brown Azalea linen. Photo courtesy of my assistant, Juanice Jenkins. See the pillar candles along the window ledge? They added such a nice ambiance. If they look familiar, it's because they appeared back in March!

Real Wedding: LaShawn & Harold (Part 1)

LaShawn and Harold

Ceremony: Bethlehem Baptist Church of Alexandria

Reception Venue: Ft. Belvoir Officers’ Club (Catering Manager, Edwin Villoso).

• Advantages: Beautiful view of the Potomac River, plentiful parking, rental includes tables, chairs, and tableware
• Challenges: not Metro accessible, food & beverage are nothing to write home about, affordable, more than one event at the same time

DJ: Vincent Price from Master Production DJs. Great job! People started dancing with the first song and danced until their feet hurt! The dance floor was never empty.

Floral Designer: Da Vinci’s Florist. Good job and good value. They also had a great idea for the cake table. See Part 2 for photos.

Photographer: Kuhn’s Photography. Responsive during the planning process. Easy going during the event. Let’s wait and see what the photos look like.

Videographer: Ethan Yang from VisualSketch. Easy to work with during the event. Awaiting to see video for further comments. Ethan also works on movies so I’m curious to see how the edited video will turn out.

Invitations, Programs, Gift Tags, Escort Cards: Haute Papier. Sarah Meyer Walsh always does a great job with her paper products and this was no exception. See Part 2 for photos.

Linen Rentals: Select Event Rentals.

Real Wedding: Stephanie & Matt (Part 2)

For Part 1 of Stephanie and Matt’s wedding, click here for the vendor round up. Here are some photos I took from their wedding. Stephanie and Matt went for a fall style with lots of design elements that evoked everything fall!

Hollin Hall Boxwood Gardens. Note the pumpkins holding the two floral arrangements.

Hollin Hall Fireplace Room (above) and Dining Room (below). Note the brown satin linens and the pumpkin filled centerpieces. The couple named the tables after presidential homes. What a great idea!

Favors: For the adults, Mt. Vernon cider and for the kids, Historic Chocolates of Hollin Hall.

Edibles Incredible Cake

Mulled Apple Cider

Real Wedding: Stephanie & Matt (Part 1)

Hollin Hall Boxwood Garden Wedding Ceremony

When it gets to October, an incredibly busy month for most wedding planners in the DC area, it’s nice to have an easy wedding! Stephanie and Matt chose a lunch time celebration for their wedding and we had just beautiful weather for such an occasion. I personally love lunch time weddings because they tend to be more relaxed, although no less fun than an evening wedding!

Vendor Round Up

Venue: Hollin Hall Mansion. This is a beautiful venue in Alexandria. Associated with the Mt. Vernon Unitarian Church, the Mansion is not only a charming house but the garden surrounding it is perfect for outdoor events. Although the Mansion itself is not the best alternative for a rain site for a ceremony, the Meeting House Chapel is a great alternative. Stephanie and Matt had about 80 guests and I thought it was the perfect number for a buffet lunch. You could probably fit another 30 people if you were doing a sit-down dinner with no dance floor.

Photography: Ed Fraser from A Candid Image. I had worked with Ed before when he was shooting for another photography shop. Easy going guy.

Floral Designer: The Flower Market. Very creative arrangements using pumpkins. See Part 2 for photos.

Caterer: R&R Catering (Laura Eaton). R&R is one of the recommended caterers for Hollin Hall and Laura is almost always the supervisor for this venue. Another outstanding luncheon. My favorite was the sweet potato mash and mulled cider. Perfect for fall!

Music: Celebrated String Quartet. One of my go-to string ensembles. Bridgette is excellent to work with in the planning stages. Usually, I hire them just for the ceremony or ceremony and cocktail hour and you don’t really get to hear how talented these artists are. This time, because of the event being over lunch with no dancing, Stephanie and Matt chose to hire them to play during the entire reception. It was wonderful! They played classical, swings, standards, rock, and just a huge variety of music. I even got to sit down for a few minutes to soak in the music. Ah … my private little concert! What a treat!

Cake: Edibles Incredible. Alan did a wonderful job and the cake was pretty good! One layer was pumpkin and the other was apple. I liked the pumpkin a lot – had to have a few slices to make sure! What I loved was the sugar fall leaves on the cake. Just beautiful work. See Part 2 for photos.

Real Wedding: Megan & Dave (Part 2)

Did you miss Part 1 of Megan and Dave’s wedding recap? The photos I took barely do justice to how beautiful and stylish the day was. Megan had a great eye and knew her own style very well. Click here to see the slideshow by Laura Luis of Three Lights Photography.

Photo album guestbook @ Thomas Birkby House

Escort Card Table @ Thomas Birkby House. We also displayed a digital photo frame with photos of Megan and Dave. Note: a great tip on saving on linens is to use existing furniture in your venue, especially with pieces as beautiful as this table.

Courtyard at Bikby House ready for the ceremony

Megan had cards made for the assigned seats for the ceremony. Great idea! No more guessing or forgetting!

Centerpieces of calla lilies, hydrangea and pussy willow by Tierra Flora Design. Check out the avocado green tablecloth paired with black napkins.

Real Wedding: Megan & Dave (Part 1)

Thomas Birkby House wedding ceremony

One of the things I love about my job is meeting great people and seeing them on one of the happiest days of their lives. This was no exception with Megan and Dave. At our comprehensive planning session, we put the timeline together while drinking wine, eating cheese, and talking about restaurants, food, wine and beer. All the things that I love talking about too! At our final meeting, we met at Rustico for some yummy beers! On days like that, I love my job!

I really hope to remain friends with Megan and Dave. They are simply great people.

Back to the wedding day, I remember Dave tearing up upon seeing Megan walking down the aisle. I love how their officiant had them face their guests during the ceremony. You get to see their faces as opposed to their backs or sides. Dave’s dad brewed his own beer and put his own label on it with a picture of Megan and Dave. As favors, they had wine glasses engraved with names and wedding date. Megan had an incredible sense of style and went with avocado green and black for her colors – totally sleek and sophisticated and not your typical fall colors. She even designed her own dress that she changed into for late night dancing! And what’s a wedding without a little police activity? Just kidding … a Leesburg policeman was patroling in his car as the bridal party was taking pictures and he was quite gracious in letting the groom get in the patrol car for a few pictures!

Vendor Round Up

Venue: Thomas Birkby House. One of my favorite venues. You get a lot with this venue: a beautiful historic home with a brides and grooms room, lush gardens and courtyard, tent with liner, tables and chairs. Mary Louise, the coordinator there, is wonderful to work with. She used to be in catering so completely understands the vendor needs for an event. There is a convenient free parking lot close to the house also.

Photography: Laura Luis, Three Lights Photography. What a discovery! Laura was very responsive during the planning process. She was quick and had a great eye for doing portraits. Just see for yourself in Part 2 for her slideshow.

Caterer: Catering by Dana. Dana had done several parties for Megan’s mom in the past and so it was an easy choice when it came to finding a caterer for the wedding. Great food. Great staff.

Floral Designer: Tierra Floral Design. Based in Bethesda, they have a very modern sensibility to their design that I really liked and that I thought suited Megan really well. Their website is under construction currently but do check back soon to see their work. Meanwhile, check out Part 2 for some of the photos I took of their centerpieces.

Music: Chris Laich Music Services. Chris himself DJ’d both the ceremony and the reception. He is the ultimate professional and provides his brides and grooms with the best customer services. He and his associates are great at what they do.

Event Rentals: Select Event Rentals. We rented all the dinnerware and the linens from Select so that Megan was able to personalize the whole look of the event.

Makeup: Leah McKay. Great as usual.

Hair: Hair by Diane.

Cake: Victoria’s Cakery. Megan and Dave did not want the traditional wedding cake so they opted for a 6″ display cake that they cut at their table for photo ops and had a baker bake several sheet cakes for cutting in the kitchen. A great way to save if cake is not your favorite.

Please Feed Us

Dinner!

Famed wedding planner, Sasha Souza, recently wrote a blog entry about feeding vendors that I thought hit the nail squarely on the head. In addition to the points she made, I thought I’d add my 2 cents.

• My assistants could all attest that we work at a non-stop pace throughout your entire wedding. Usually by dinner time, we’ve gone several hours without even taking a potty break or even drinking a glass of water, so sitting down for 10-15 minutes to eat a real meal is a welcomed break, especially for our completely numbed feet. I’m not whining but honestly, I need some substantial food because chances are, we have many more hours to go and we need the energy to lift heavy things at the end of the night when we are cleaning up, long after the guests have left.
• Let me beat this one into your head a little more – please ask your caterer to feed your photographers and videographers before or at the same time you eat. Usually, brides and grooms like to visit the guests once they have eaten a few bites of your meal. Your photographers and videographers would love to capture all those expressive conversations. They don’t want to have to answer why they didn’t capture those moments from you later!
• Dear Caterers, please don’t look at us like we have 4 heads if we ask you to feed the vendors before or at the same time you feed the bride and groom. Now, I totally understand that your first priority is feeding the hundreds of guests. But actually, shouldn’t your first priority be making the bride and groom happy? By feeding the vendors early, they can do their jobs properly and not miss anything, which makes the bride and groom happy. If you feed them after all the guests have eaten, then the photographers will miss photos of the couple visiting their guests. Feeding the band before the reception starts means they get to take shorter breaks later, which means more music, which means more dancing, which makes the bride and groom happy.