Tag: orange and green

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Real Wedding: A Fall Wedding at the Meridian House (Part 1)

I first met Aubrey and Dave only two months before they planned to wed on October 23rd at one of our most loved venues, Meridian House in Washington, DC. While there was only two months until they said “I do” they had a vision and feeling of exactly how the wanted their wedding day to be shared. All photos from Stacey Vaeth

persian wedding ceremony meridian house

They could not have asked for better weather for an outdoor fall garden wedding in late October.  The fusion ceremony was comprised of a traditional Persian ceremony, performed in Farsi, and a non-denominational ceremony.  The entire ceremony was beautiful and combined all elements that were important to Aubrey and Dave.

The cocktail hour immediately followed and Aubrey and Dave decided on the bright fall colors of green and shades of orange.  Dinner was served by Main Event, and as always, they did not disappoint.  DJ, Bryan George, did a fantastic job at keeping everyone on the dance floor too!

Stayed tuned for part 2 where  I go into the details of the ceremony and reception!

-Megan

washington dc wedding meridian house

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Real Wedding: Family Backyard Fun in Potomac, Maryland (Part 4)

Last part of Jessica and Bill’s Maryland backyard wedding – Vendor Recap. Go back to Part 1 for the intro, Part 2 for Style Overview, and Part 3 (ceremony). Photos by Kate Hauschka.

Catering: Fusions Cuisine.  Chef Jim Thompson is so creative with coming up with a menu that embraced Bill and Jessica’s lives, the places they’ve been and the foods that remind them of those place.

Tent, Generators, Fans: L&A Tent Rentals. I’ve done several backyard weddings with the Drivers. L&A is a family owned business and they take good care of their customers. They were kind enough to hang all the paper lanterns for us!

Maryland backyard wedding pole tent paper lanternsTrailer Restrooms: Blue Ribbon Restroom Trailers. Good experience here. The bathrooms are easy to operate and are in great condition. They even pipe music inside the bathrooms. It just requires access to water source and power. I recommend that you get the toilet its own generator.

Photographer: Katharine Hauschka. Chance would have it that this was the 2nd time I worked with Kate within a few months. Kate is really easy going. Her portraits of the couple are fun but have an intimate feel, focused close in on the couple, a little artsy. She gets a good balance of detailed shots and unscripted moments.

Musicians: St. Charles String Quartet. Great to work with and I love that they have a wide repertoire of music, ranging from classical to pop/rock tunes.

St. Charles String Quartet

DJ: Michael Perry

Wedding Planner: Vicky Choy, Event Accomplished, Arlington, VA

Hope you enjoyed reading about this wedding as much as we did putting it together! Vicky

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Real Wedding: Family Backyard Fun in Potomac, Maryland (Part 2)

MarylandGo back to Part 1 for this backyard wedding held at a private home in Potomac, Maryland. All photos by Kate Hauschka

Colors: Orange and Green. While these are not typical colors in an Asian wedding, Jessica loves orange and the green was inspired by the bamboo branches throughout the property.

Overarching Goal: The driving idea behind the whole wedding was combining families, as well as the couple’s preferences and personalities. Therefore, we were deliberate in the choices made for the ceremony and reception to make sure that the idea of unity was reflected in every part of the wedding.

Bill is of Italian and Germany descent and  Jessica is Taiwanese. Both have traveled extensively for their jobs and personal interest. Bill wanted a backyard BBQ with lots of mingling and activities, while Jessica loves to dance. This is how we incorporated everything.

Decor: Jessica loved lanterns so we incorporated them inside the main tent, inside the lounge area, and used ones her father brought back from Taiwan to greet guests as they entered. In the invitations, escort cards and programs, Jessica’s friend who is a graphic designer, designed an abstract of lanterns as part of the motif.

chinese paper lanterns wedding

orange escort cardsorange green lanterns wedding ceremony programs

Activities: Bill wanted many options for their guests in terms of activities. So we set out bocce ball, croquet, badminton, hula hoops, as well as a photo booth and pop corn machine. It was a lot of fun to watch guests hold a drink in one hand while playing bocce with the other!

Tip: Take care of the children and the parents will have a great time. We hired two babysitters to entertain and to watch over the kids so that their parents can enjoy themselves, and they surely did! For a casual wedding like this, we set out some blankets for the children to sit on for the ceremony so that it’s not so formal, and children are fidgety anyway. The children also ate earlier than the parents and we had the babysitters order pizza for them. By the time they finished, they were able to join in the dancing.

Jessica had a lot of younger cousins, most of whom were home during the summer so we decided to put them to work. They made adorable signs and table numbers, and decorated popcorn bags. Very creative!

popcorn bags

Reception: To incorporate Bill’s idea of a mingling party, we had 2 cocktail hours. The first cocktail hour was held before the ceremony. As guests arrived, they were free to mingle, grab a bite to eat and have a nice cold drink, which gave Bill a chance to talk to the guests. After about 30 minutes, we invited the guests to sit for the ceremony. After the ceremony, we had another cocktail period for another 45 minutes.

Tip: if you open the bar before the ceremony, be sure to serve some food along with it so guests don’t get too drunk too soon, especially on a hot day!

Food: In their choices for hors d’oeuvres, you can see both of them reflected. The food included ginger-lemongrass meatballs, summer rolls, antipasto, goat cheese fundido, Mediterranean dips. Dinner was served family style to encourage interaction and included Asian inspired flavors like miso glazed salmon with baby bok choy, quinoa and black bean salad with roasted corn and sweet peppers, ginger lemongrass angus beef sirloin with pickled carrot and daikon slaw. We also served Prosecco.

For more photos from this wedding, please visit Kate’s blog. Stay tuned for the continuation of this at-home wedding and a recap of one my favorite ceremonies of all time — Vicky